Councillor Sandra Duffy raises over £40,000 for local homeless during year as mayor

Former Mayor of Derry and Strabane Sandra Duffy raised almost £43k for local homeless charity First Housing during her year as Mayor.

The money raised will help her chosen mayoral charity carry out frontline services for the most vulnerable homeless people within the city and district.

Councillor Duffy said she was delighted with the generosity shown during what was a difficult year for many.

“I have to say the people of Derry and Strabane were so, so generous. I will be forever grateful for everything that they did,” the Sinn Féin councillor said.

“It was at the height of the cost of living crisis; people were literally struggling to put food on the table and put the heat on in their homes but they were still able to donate. It just shows generosity of the people of Derry and Strabane.

“I know from talking to First Housing that the money is going directly into frontline services and is already being used to ensure some of the service users have access to gyms and other services that are going to improve their health, their mental health and their general well being.”

First Housing covers a range of issues from temporary supported accommodation, through supported housing for people with mental health issues; from helping through with addiction problems to allowing people to access the private rented sector.

“It's probably the largest homeless charity working within the city and district. It has quite a number of hostels throughout Derry and Strabane.

“It caters for the needs of people from young people who are in need of care, young people who have found themselves outside the family home. There's also accommodation for women and children, single parents, and then sorted accommodation as well for people with addiction issues. They cater for such a wide range of people who are homeless.

Cllr Duffy said she has a ‘particular passion around homelessness’. She started working with the Simon Community when she left university in 1998.

“I have always worked within the homeless sector. I've always had a real passion about trying to deliver better services for people who find themselves within that homeless cycle.

“Whatever I can do to raise funds to try and address some of the issues that are out there, particularly in terms of frontline service pressures. That was always sort of my focus around trying to raise money.”

Homeless services in the City are facing more pressure as the numbers of people in need of help grows according to the councillor.

“What we have found in recent years is the numbers that are presenting are exceeding our ability to deliver services because the demand is just outstripping what we have available.

“Unfortunately we have seen numbers hugely increase. We have a waiting list here of over 5000 people waiting for a permanent home. Within that we probably have well over 200 who are what is termed 'chronic homeless' who would have really complex needs in terms of their mental health or addictions and require just that additional support. That is more than we anticipated a number of years ago.

“We have seen the numbers in temporary accommodation go through the roof over the last while and we have had to be imaginative around different services that can be put in place to try and ensure that really vulnerable people are receiving the support that they actually need.”

However, she said Derry has 'absolutely fantastic services' with support from the point of presenting to the Housing Executive as homeless to supported accommodation or floating support to coming out the other end with a permanent home.

“We have fantastic services and fantastic people working within the services, constantly going way over and above, which was one of the reasons why last year while I was mayor I instigated the homeless award service ceremony in the Guildhall.

“We were able to award, just small tokens, to people who have been going over and above within those different services.

“During COVID - when a lot of services shut down or went to work from home - homeless services really couldn't do that. You had to continue and be imaginative with ways to work with very vulnerable people who needed face to face services. It was good to be able to recognise that.”

The mayoral charity receives funds from a number of fundraisers throughout the year. Cllr Duffy said it was important that they had a variety of events so everyone could feel included.

“The variety of charity events was amazing. We had a 24 hour charity busk over the St Patrick's Day weekend, which was fantastic and we had so much local talent who came through the Nerve Centre. It started at five o'clock just after the parade and carried on right through the night and into Saturday evening. There was a great buzz around the Guildhall square for that.

“We also had the supercar event, which was so popular with the children. Seeing all the different types of cars from DeLorean right up to the most expensive Porches money can buy.

“We had smaller events too. We had céilís in the Guildhall, we had a charity boxing event, we had different types of events just to have that variety and ensure people throughout the city felt included and able to take part in some of the fundraising activity. It also just helped to raise awareness as well of homelessness in the city.”