Opposition to hostel for homeless women
August 1989
A St. Vincent de Paul plan to build a hostel for homeless women in Wexford has met a wall of resistance from worried residents. Householders in the Thomas Street area, where it would be sited, claim that such a hostel would attract ‘prostitutes and alcoholics’.
The first public announcement of the Society’s proposal appeared last week in the form of a planning notice in local newspapers.
‘It was the first we knew about it. Nobody consulted us beforehand,’ said one angry resident, who fears that the hostel will cause disturbances in an area which has a largely elderly population.
On discovering the hostel plan, householders in Thomas Street, Marian Row, and Black Cow Lane immediately set about mobilising opposition.
Wexford TDs and councillors were contacted over the weekend, and a petition was drawn up for submission to Wexford Corporation.
It was signed by an estimated 99% of local residents, and was handed into the Corporation prior to a housing meeting on Monday night.
The St Vincent de Paul Society president, Sean Kinsella, said this week that he and another officer are willing to meet Thomas Street residents. ‘It is not our policy to cause bitterness or rancour,’ said Mr Kinsella, who described householders in the area as ‘reasonably-minded people’.
The Society currently runs an overcrowded women’s hostel in Francis Street, and the need for improved facilities has long been recognised. ‘We have one room there, with four or five beds, and the women have to live and sleep in that. There is neither dignity nor privacy attached to it,’ he said.
The new hostel would mostly cater for single women, he explained. It would not be a refuge for battered wives, but still, some of the women could be victims of family violence.
He pointed out that Ozanam House, a St Vincent de Paul hostel for homeless men, has been operating without any major problem at Thomas Street for a number of years.
Residents say however that putting a women’s hostel beside a men’s one would be bad planning. They say they accept the need for a women’s hostel, but it should be sited elsewhere.