Novas Annual Report 2022

Annual Report 2022
HEALTH AND RECOVERY
While safe, sustainable housing is the single biggest factor impacting
the health of homeless people, psychosocial support, access to clinical
interventions and dedicated low-threshold dual diagnosis programmes are
essential to enhanced wellbeing of this population. During 2022, NOVAS
provided a range of health and wellbeing interventions for our clients in
residential and community settings, including addiction and grief counselling,
community detox, family respite and overdose prevention programmes. For
example, our addiction counselling service in Kerry supported 61 people
throughout the year, which included 256 one-to-one sessions, 32 brief
interventions, 58 phone support sessions and 105 group facilitations.
Throughout the Mid-West, 114 people were supported through our
Community Detox programme, providing interventions for people to detox in
their own homes and preparing others for residential treatment. Our health
and wellbeing workers were available to all our STA clients in the region
and delivered life-saving, overdose preventions programmes throughout the
year. Considering the recent figures published by the Health Research Board
on drug related deaths in Ireland, which are among the highest in Europe,
services like these are more important than ever.
FAMILY AND CHILDREN
While single people spent long periods of time in emergency homeless
accommodation, there was also a simultaneous rise in family and child
homelessness throughout the year. Unfettered rent increases, stagnant HAP
payments, a further contraction of properties in the private rented market
and insufficient social housing made it increasingly difficult for low-income
families to secure and maintain long-term housing options. By December
2022, there were 3,442 children experiencing homelessness in the state. This
was a 40% increase from the previous year.
While the reasons families seek support from NOVAS are complex and multifaceted,
they are inextricably bound to the housing shortage, with more
households than ever impacted by the crisis. During 2022, NOVAS provided
support to families in all the regions in which we work. Established in 2005,
our flagship Intensive Family Support Service (IFS) in Limerick worked
with more than 1,400 adults and children, through a range of supports and
interventions including intensive family support, a dedicated service in
28