Dr. Susan Finnerty:

There is a move by the HSE to appoint housing officers in each of the CHOs and some of them are in place at present. The services work closely with voluntary agencies such as HAIL Housing, Respond Housing Association and the like to provide accommodation. One of the big difficulties is that there is a very large number of what we call 24-hour supervised community residences. There are at least 113 of them housing approximately 1,300 people. A number of those people do not have to be there. I refer to rehabilitation again because if the rehabilitation teams were in place they could move out to more independent living. This would free up facilities that are owned by the HSE, in most cases, for development in homelessness services, rehabilitation services and so forth. That issue must be addressed. Since we are discussing workforce planning, there is a large number of nurses in those supervised residences who could be employed in the community offering services to people with either acute or enduring mental illnesses. It takes 12 whole-time equivalents to staff one of those community residences and we have 113. A significant number do not need to be there. That would free up housing for more acute crisis houses and so forth. It must be examined in the context of what the HSE is currently providing as well as looking to the housing authorities.