A homeless charity has called on activists and supporters to march through Belfast on Saturday to protest against a sharp increase in the number of people dying on the streets of Northern Ireland’s capital.
The mayor, Tina Black, council party group leaders and statutory agencies met on Friday to discuss a crisis in which an estimated 14 people have died in recent months. Approximately nine were found dead on the street, the rest in homeless accommodation.
Activists said the spiralling cost of living had coincided with a public health emergency by making more vulnerable people homeless.
The march will pass by the Cathedral Quarter, the site of the most recent deaths, and end with a rally at City Hall, which is facing a clamour to avert further tragedies.
The most recent fatalities were a 19-year-old woman, yet to be named, and Jade Gorman, 23, who had lived on the streets but was found in an apartment. Drug overdoses were suspected. During two weeks in June, six homeless men died of overdoses.
“I’ve done homeless work for 10 years and never seen this amount of distress and tragedy,” said Paul McCusker, a city councillor and founder of The People’s Kitchen, the charity organising the march. “In one hour last Sunday we were dealing with three overdoses and one cutting; four people slumped over bins. That’s just one hour in Belfast city centre on a Sunday evening.”
Too many people have lost their lives on our streets! Enough is enough! It’s time for change! Please join us on Saturday! #timeforchange #everylifematters #homelessness #addiction #mentalhealth #peopleskitchenbelfast pic.twitter.com/XSfqUHNL1d
— Paul Mc Cusker (@Paul_Mc_Cusker) July 21, 2022
McCusker, of the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), said Belfast was not providing enough accommodation, addiction services and mental health treatment to handle the big increase in the number of young homeless people. Many mixed heroin and other opiates with other drugs, he said. “Most people we work with take a cocktail of drugs, which puts them at greater risk.” The cost of living was having a “massive” impact on homelessness, McCusker added.
The union Unite urged its members and other unions to join the march to put pressure on Northern Ireland’s Stormont assembly – which is currently mothballed – and government agencies to do more. “That toll is an indictment of Stormont,” said Susan Fitzgerald, Unite’s regional coordinating officer.
Fitzgerald pointed to the delay in opening a replacement shelter for the women-only Regina Coeli hostel, which shut in March. “It is disgusting that in our society so many are brutalised by poverty, addiction and abuse and then just left to fend for themselves with little or no support,” she said.
Drug-related deaths in Northern Ireland have increased from 92 a decade ago to 218 in 2020, the highest on record, according to government report published in March. Just over half of the fatalities were men aged 25-44. Death rates were highest among people aged 25-34.
Non-residential parts of Belfast city centre offered addicts a way to hide drug-taking from families and communities, said Iain Cameron, an outreach manager with Extern, a social justice charity. “Heroin use here is very stigmatised. People might have been put out by their own community, or they are worried about being identified. So it’s almost safer to use in the city centre than in their local area.”
Interventions by ambulance crews and a small group of specially trained police officers were preventing many overdoses becoming fatal, he said.
Extern has urged policymakers to open an overdose prevention facility – a designated place for people to take drugs under the supervision of trained staff, who provide drug treatment, mental health services, wound care and blood testing. There are about 200 facilities in the US, Canada and about a dozen European countries, but none in the UK.
