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June 13, 2022

The Irish Echo Honors The Partnership’s President/CEO Áine Duggan

“Solutions that make sense.” That was the headline in last week’s article describing how The Partnership to End Homelessness is changing the narrative about homelessness by focusing on prevention. President and CEO Áine Duggan, interviewed for the article about the nonprofit’s work and her career, shed light on the problematic historical approach to addressing homelessness.

Áine noted that most public attention (and the media’s) continues to focus on street homelessness, even though it only represents a small portion of the extent of homelessness in our city. And, she highlighted how investing in prevention makes more than common sense but financial sense – it costs roughly $70,000 annually for a family to reside in a shelter but only an average of about $4,000 to $5,000 to provide rental assistance to keep that same family in their home.

As Áine said in the article, “The best way for anyone to think about that is our own lives… If we didn’t have our apartments to go to tonight, if we weren’t able to close the door behind us, to settle in, make dinner, unwind from the day, and then get up and do it all again tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to function.”

Áine added, “That’s the experience we have with a lot of the families we have – once they’re stably housed, you pay off rent arrears, you can engage them in all sorts of other services and they’re able to start, they’re able to grow their own stability. It’s remarkable what families are able to achieve. It does work.”

You can read the article here: Solutions that make sense (irishecho.com)

The article coincided with the news outlet’s presentation of the Irish Echo Community Champion award to Áine for her efforts to address homelessness in NYC, change the public narrative about the face of homelessness, and shift the spotlight onto prevention to bring an end to homelessness.


photo credit: Nuala Purcell/Irish Echo

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