What to Expect at the NOVAS Christmas Sleep-Out

Planning on joining the NOVAS Christmas Sleep-Out and wondering what to expect? Here’s a taster of the evening.

Music/Carols

Music and carols are always a welcome part of the evening and ensures a strong impact.  

Tea and Snacks

We will have tea, coffee, soup, sandwiches, goodies and other finger food available on the night. Refreshments will be provided by our generous supporters and local businesses.

Donation collecting

A large portion of the evening will involve our bucket collection. All participants will be provided with a permit and collection materials. We will also have a number of t-shirts for participants to wear on the night.

Community Atmosphere

With our large team of volunteers and participants, there is a strong community atmosphere on the streets during the evening, as everyone joins together to support the cause and collect donations from festive party goers in town.

We are looking for as many people as possible to take part in the NOVAS Sleep-Out this year to help raise much needed funds to support homeless services throughout the region this Christmas. This year, we have Sleep-Out events in Limerick, Ennis, Tralee and Thurles.

If you are interested in sleeping out with us on December 17th, email sleepout@novas.ie

Participants will receive a sponsorship card. Donate online at www.novas.ie/donate

NOVAS’ Christmas Toy Appeal

Every year NOVAS’ Christmas Toy Appeal supports more than 1,000 children, to help ensure they wake up happy on Christmas morning. This year, we anticipate that more families than ever will need our support and we need your help to make this possible! If you are in a position to participate, read on to see how you can get involved:

There are many ways you can get involved in the toy appeal:

  1. A donation can be made here: https://www.novas.ie/donate/. Chose ‘Christmas Toy Appeal’ on the drop down menu. The money donated will be used by our staff to buy the toys that are needed.
  2. Alternatively, if you do not wish to donate money, we would be thrilled to accept vouchers. If these are purchased online, they can be emailed to toyappeal@novas.ie and again our staff will use these to buy appropriate gifts for the children and teenagers we work with.
  3. However, if you enjoy the shopping experience, we would be very grateful to accept gifts. We will provide the details of a child to buy for (age and gender). These can be dropped (unwrapped) to our Intensive Family Support Office on 1 Mungret Street, Limerick. Email toyappeal@novas.ie to get the details of a child you can buy for. We would love if gifts could be dropped on the week of Monday 6th of December so we have enough time to ensure they get to the homes that need them most, however we would be delighted to accept presents until the 23rd of December.

So if you, your work colleagues or your family members would like to give back this Christmas, please consider participating in our toy appeal.

Thanks everyone and please spread the word!

NOVAS launches 2020 Annual Report

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the extraordinary pressures it placed on homeless services during 2020, NOVAS worked with more people than ever before. Some 5,701 people were in receipt of support during the year, an 8% increase from the previous 12-month period and a rise of 493% since 2010.

The biggest demand for support was across the organisation’s tenancy sustainment and family support services. With schools and childcare facilities closed, low-income families were unable to access supports such as breakfast and afterschool clubs. Food poverty was a bigger issue than ever before for such households and demand for food parcels, hot meal deliveries and basic toiletry and childcare items rose sharply.

For the third successive year, the organisation provided support to more than 1,000 children across counties Limerick, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary and Dublin. Some 1,136 children in 445 families across the country were in receipt of support throughout the year.

Head of Policy and Communications with the organisation, Dr. Una Burns, described 2020 ‘as a year like no other.’ She explained how ‘so many of practices had to be reconfigured to meet new infection control measures. It was an extremely difficult time for the people who access our services and for our staff working on the frontline. We were very fortunate to be in a position to maintain service delivery throughout the crisis and keep levels of infection across our services very low. However, the period was extraordinarily difficult for our clients whose social isolation and marginalization was compounded by service closures. Their already limited support networks were diminished further and human connection was minimized’.

Despite the challenges posed throughout the year, the organisation continued to provide accommodation to those who needed it the most. In response to the crisis, NOVAS opened a cocooning service in Dublin and extended its night shelter in Limerick to provide 24/7 care and support to clients, in conjunction with its statutory partners.

Mayor of Limerick, Daniel Butler, who officially launched the report, ‘commended the work of the organisation during the period, noting the excellent collaboration between the organisation, the city council and the HSE in keeping some of the most vulnerable people in our community safe during unprecedented times’.

Tenant Newsletter – September 2021

Welcome to the first edition of our Tenant Newsletter. This is our first of many tenant newsletters, designed to engage with our tenants and keep them up-to-date with developments relating to NOVAS Homes.

In this edition, you will learn about our new furniture campaign #FromOurHomeToYours, where tenants can access good quality used furniture if they need it. We are also hosting a furniture upcycling class later this month, which is free for our clients.

For these stories and more, read our newsletter here.

NOVAS broadly welcomes the Housing For All plan

NOVAS broadly welcomes the new Housing For All plan and its commitment to ending homelessness by 2030. Through the delivery of more social and affordable homes, increased delivery of housing generally and a commitment to extending the Housing First Programme nationally, the plan seeks to eradicate homelessness by the end of the decade.

Specific commitments to build more than 300,000 homes by 2030, with particular targets for social and affordable housing as well as cost rental, are essential. If the commitment to deliver 90,000 social homes by 2030 is achieved, it will have a seismic impact on reducing our over-reliance on the private sector to solve the social housing crisis and will provide security of tenure on an unprecedented scale for thousands of low-income households.

NOVAS’ Head of Policy and Communications, Una Burns notes that ‘the scale of social housing is very welcome, particularly relating to one-bed units. Single people spend the longest time homeless because of the lack of small units of move-on accommodation. Increasing this stock is essential in reducing long-term homelessness and an over-reliance on emergency and temporary accommodation. It is absolutely essential that such targets are met. NOVAS look forward to working with government to play its part in achieving the ambitions set out in the plan.’

NOVAS warmly supports the commitment to an inter-departmental and cross-government approach to supporting homeless people, both through the extension of Housing First and also through specific commitments to provide targeted health interventions for people who are homeless with specific consideration to their complex needs.

The plan is ambitious and the targets are high. Examining our annual house building output in recent years, points to the challenges faced by government. The targets must be met. We must move away from a reliance on private rented accommodation to meet social housing demands. We must prevent homelessness and provide security and safety for our vulnerable groups in society.

Volunteer Recruitment

We need your help!!! We are seeking volunteers to support our work in Limerick and Dublin.

Limerick Roles:

  • Street Outreach volunteers and drivers
  • Foodcloud drivers
  • Furniture collection drivers for our #FromOurHomeToYours campaign.

Dublin roles:

  • Furniture collection drivers for our #FromOurHomeToYours campaign.

A Volunteer Application Form can be found here.

For driving roles, volunteers must be over 25 years of age and have a clean drivng licence.

For further information email tracey.mccarthy@novas.ie We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Kieran and Joan’s Story

At the end of 2019 NOVAS established it’s first Family Tenancy Sustainment service in Dublin. In collaboration with Fingal County Council, we housed 52 families during the Covid-19 pandemic. These families had been living in emergency accommodation, confined to one bedrooms in hotels & B&B’s. We are thrilled to supported them move to their own homes.

Here Kieran and Joan share their story:

We lived on a halting site for 20 years, we got married and had our children who were raised there. Overtime the halting site became very messy, dirt and rubbish started building up and new buildings started popping up everywhere around us. We tried to keep it tidy as much as we could but the dirt was attracting rats and the toilet facilities were absolutely horrific. We felt really low in ourselves, we were concerned for our children. We had to hand wash our children as we had no running water. The children would have to use buckets at night time when using the toilet. They had nowhere to play so we had to keep our kids indoors most of the time as it was not safe on the site. We feel the children could not be like children, they were losing out. There was no space in the caravan, we were living on top of each other. The caravan was very cold in the winter, electricity would constantly go off and the caravan floor was damp, with it falling through at one stage. Living in this environment was stressful. We were ashamed living in these conditions compared to now.

We were picked to move into our new home. Coming from a halting site and moving into a settle community was great. We felt very welcome as the NOVAS staff introduced us to one of our neighbours. They made us feel very welcome. As a family we have our own space and our relationships are improving. We became very excited as we started to picture decorating our new home before Christmas. The children were very excited and the kids started arguing about picking their rooms. The kids are settling in and they are doing much better in school and making friends in the community. We feel very safe and don’t feel locked in. We feel that we are part of a community and take great pride in our new home. We have a back garden so the kids can play.

We feel so grateful that we had the support moving and continue to receive support from our support worker, Pamela. Now we have a fresh start and a new life.

Sumithra’s Story

Before I moved to my new home I lived in emergency accommodation for eight months.   I was in the middle of receiving chemotherapy treatment and had two children to care for.

In the emergency accommodation I received a lot of support from the staff but there was a lot of shouting, and noise and I found it very hard to sleep.  The children were also affected by this and they were scared most of the time.  I felt I could not control my children and found this very stressful.

When I was receiving treatment the staff were very good to me by looking after my children but I felt it was not my own home and I had to constantly remind my children that we needed to wait to move into a new home.  The children were sad living there as the noise was really bad which caused them to be anxious.  I felt I was in a prison, as my friends could not come and see me.  I was always sitting in the house.  I felt very stressed.  The only faces I seen were the staff and the children.  I use to cry in the middle of the night and did not sleep for many nights.

I could not paint or decorate my home and the children became very upset as they wanted to hang pictures because they love drawing and colouring.  It’s a prison and I found it very hard to live here.  I felt I had no address, no platform.   I missed my friends and the company.

When I first saw my home I felt it was a miracle.  The first thing I asked was if I could hang the children’s pictures up on the wall!  The children are very happy as they could now express themselves and show off their art by hanging their pictures on the wall.  The children can play outside and move around freely.  The children are so happy and they went crazy when they first saw their new home and they love their bedrooms.  They play in the back garden and we plan to buy a trampoline to play on.  My little boy loves gardening and now we have our own garden.  We plan to grow seeds and plant flowers.    I received a donation from NOVAS.  It was a TV which the children are very grateful for.  They have not watched TV for eight months because I was saving to buy furniture for a possible new home.  I was very happy to learn that my new home will be fully furnished.  This took so much stress away from me and my family.

I have also support from my support worker, Susan, who can help me out with different things.  My friends can come over and visit now, I’m not alone here.  I just introduced myself to my neighbours and they are really nice.  I have already planned to have friends to come visit my new home.  Now I have an address, somewhere to call home, somewhere my children can be happy and can express themselves.  This is my home, this is my address.  I can now sleep in peace.

Our Forever Home

Being a family of seven living in emergency accommodation was hard and cramped. My boys found it difficult because there was three of them in the same room and they have big age gaps between them. My partner and I shared a room with our two daughters. It was becoming a strain on our relationships and on us as a family because we had nowhere to go when we needed some space, there was no outdoor area and no visitors allowed, at times it felt like prison. However, we were at the time extremely grateful to have it. My oldest child was embarrassed about where he lived as we all were, but he took it the worst.

When we got the call about being put forward for by the Limerick Council for the NOVAS house we could not believe our luck. After three years in a two-bedroom apartment things began to get better when we met Sarah and went out to view the house. It was everything we could have wished for and more.

When Sarah graciously gave us the keys to the house all my five children started to cry. My seven-year-old said ‘wishes really do come true mam’. As a parent this was the best thing that could have happened. When I see them playing in our backyard it fills me with joy. Something that would not have happened without Sarah or NOVAS.

Now we are in our forever home in time for Christmas and each child and adult feel as if all our Christmases have come at once. We have never been so happy. We would like to thank Sarah from NOVAS Housing and Naomi from the NOVAS family support service from the bottom of our hearts for giving us our home, your time and resources and for giving us a chance and for helping our wishes come true.

My sons would also like to thank you because now they can have friends over (after Covid of course) and have some pride in their home. And lastly, thank you because I can finally have my parents over to our home for a cup of tea which means the world to us all, something we haven’t had for 3 years. You will never know how much this house (our forever home) means to us, how it has changed everything and how much stress has been lifted from us.

From myself, my partner and my children- Thank you.

Our story – Moving into our own home

We had been living in the middle of a bog area in a caravan and then a mobile home for about six years. We found this very difficult but we made it work at the time. We had a water tank that would get filled every week and our electricity came from a generator which we would have to get fuel for regularly. This generator caused us a lot of trouble as it would always break and cost a good bit to get fixed. We used a kerosene heater for heat which wasn’t great because the fumes were not good for our health and especially the health of our children. During the winter time it was worse because there would be icicles on the ceiling of the mobile in the morning time.

We reared our two young children as best we could with what we had to give them a good start at life but it was not easy to do in the conditions. Living out there we were very isolated from people and it was very lonely for us trying to get by in life. Really the restrictions of Covid didn’t change how we lived because we have felt isolated for a long time.

We were over the moon when we heard we were being offered the NOVAS house, we really didn’t believe this would ever happen for us. When we first got to see the house we were delighted and at the time still really did not believe that it was happening. We didn’t even know what to do or how to move into a house but we have had so much support from Ciara in the Tipperary NOVAS service that she made everything easier for us. She has been helping us out for about 2 years now and we honestly couldn’t ask for a better person to support us. She has helped make our house a home.

It means the world to me knowing that my wife and children are now safe and we have more freedom to be happy. We have got our heating, electricity and running water with no worries about whether or not they cut out or waking up to icicles in the morning.

Our children have the space in the house and even having the back garden now where they can grow up safely, they did not have this before. We have a small dog and she loves the house too and even has her own little bed in the sitting room. We are not isolated anymore and have better access to shops and places that we need to go to everyday.  We always make sure to celebrate Christmas no matter where we have been but this will be the best Christmas in our new home.

My family feel totally safe and secure for the first time in a long time and we are very happy.

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