Ms Alison Connolly:

I will talk about the Dublin 15 campaign we ran. It was based on research we conducted last year into family homelessness. We found that a slightly higher proportion of a cohort of 636 children we were considering had previously been residing in Dublin 15. Based on our knowledge of prevention campaigns in other jurisdictions, we know targeted prevention campaigns are the most effective, so we decided to run a very targeted, short-run prevention campaign in Dublin 15.

There were two main aspects to it. One aspect was large-scale postering in bus shelters, train stations and the Blanchardstown shopping centre. The other aspect, and the one that was most effective, was sending out very specifically worded letters to families in receipt of rent supplement in the area. We were lucky that the local Department of Social Protection worked with us on this. We sent about 2,500 letters, and nearly 200 people contacted us. We had a specific freefone line and ran one-to-one clinics in the area. The campaign lasted about five weeks. About 180 people contacted us.

It was very successful targeting in that of the people who contacted us, I think seven did not need assistance, so we got people who did need help and were at risk of homelessness. We also got people whom we could help. There were issues with which we could assist them, whether it was through our own advice and advocacy work or through moving them on to Threshold or other organisations. We also found that 98% of them said the letter was the reason they contacted us, as opposed to the postering campaign. Implicitly, people could have seen the poster campaign and it could have triggered something, but the letter was the more successful aspect. We managed to move about 10% of the people who contacted us and who were at risk of homelessness into more stable accommodation as a result. Some of them did move into emergency accommodation by virtue of the fact that they had received valid notices of termination and we just got to them too late. It is worth considering how early one can prompt people to get in contact, but it was a very successful campaign overall, and the vast majority of people were very satisfied with the service and would refer others to it, so we are really happy with it.