A working life: Part one

The early days

A Working Life: The Early Days gives voice to the experiences of 18 people as they move into employment with support from Cork Simon.

It examines the participants motivations for working, the challenges they faced, the positives they found and the supports they valued in their early weeks of work.

A Working Life: The Early Days forms Part One of our Working Life research series.

Part Two reports on the participants’ continued journeys over 25 months. View Part Two: The Continuing Journey.

Download Part One - A Working Life: The Early Years

Latest

Single Adults Living with their Parents: When there are no alternatives - service user experiences

The housing crisis has a long and broad reach, impacting every sector of society. Our third Home Truths paper demonstrates how it's keeping young adults stuck in their childhood bedrooms, unable to live independently of their parents. But it doesn't end there. Should the family relationship break down their housing options are severely limited, pushing them into homelessness. Some of them shared their experiences with Sophie Johnston.
Single Adults Living with their Parents: When the private rental sector is your most likely option

There's been a marked shift in the rates of owner-occupied, private-rented and social-rented households. It's most stark among the over 30s, with the majority now in private-rented accommodation. Sophie Johnston, the author of our third Home Truths paper: Single Adults Living with their Parents, explores why this is a concerning development given that 2 in every 5 single adults new to emergency accommodation in the Southwest come from the private rented sector.
Single Adults Living with their Parents: When you cannot afford to move out

The largest proportional increase in single adults living with parents has not been among the youngest adult age groups, as might be expected with increasing time spent in education; it has been among 25-29 year olds, the significant majority of whom are in employment. On foot of our third Home Truths paper: Single Adults Living with their Parents, Sophie Johnston explores how a dysfunctional housing market is preventing young adults from living independently of their parents.
Opening Doors Spring 2024

At the Soup Run, there’s a feeling of sadness when you see someone new, because that means another person is struggling to make ends meet. With your kind help, the Soup Run provides vital help that goes far beyond a hot meal, for people who are homeless in Cork.

Sustaining the accelerant?

September 2021 Evaluating the responses of the Simon Communities to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic from March 2020 to August 2021. It represents the concluding phase of a larger study encompassing two prior reports.
Covid-19 experiences

September 2021: This small-scale qualitative study explores the experiences of service users across Simon Communities of Ireland’s services, during the Covid-19 pandemic. It represents the second phase of a larger study encompassing three reports.
Systems accelerant?

September 2020: Evaluating the responses of the Simon Communities to the challenges posed by Covid-19 across the eight regions in which Simon operates, during the ‘first wave’ of the pandemic in the period March to August 2020. Part one of a 3-part series.
A working life: Part two

September 2020: The Continuing Journey. In this second part of our longitudinal research series, the focus is on the difference that working makes to the lives of the participants, the challenges they faced and the factors that helped and hindered them to sustain work.
Last resort

October 2018: Vulnerabilities, Resilience and Quality-of-Life in a Homeless Population. This research report is based on 69 one-to-one interviews conducted over an eighteen-month period with 24 men and 12 women staying at our emergency shelter.
Trauma informed care

October 2017: A Model of Best Practice. This research is based on a collaborative study with UCC and HSE, and explores the connection between early childhood trauma and later negative life events among people using our services.
Home truths

October 2016: Trying to Find a Home When You're Homeless. This research explores the impact of the housing crisis on attempts by people stuck in our emergency shelter to find housing they can afford to leave homelessness behind.
Easing the pressure

October 2015: In the midst of a housing and homeless crisis, this report assesses the outcomes to-date of Cork Simon’s Social Rentals Model of housing and explores how this approach can help address the housing and homeless crisis in Cork.

Work with us

Cork Simon Community is committed to equality of opportunity. We are currently recruiting for Housing First Project Workers, Project Support Workers and Outreach Project Worker.
Factsheets

View the latest monthly emergency accommodation figures for Cork and the Southwest from the Department of Housing, and download the Cork Homeless Forum Directory of Services for people experiencing homelessness and their Guide to Emergency Homeless Services in Cork.
Donate

Please donate to help someone who is homeless in Cork make a fresh start.
Part time volunteering

Volunteers founded Cork Simon almost 50 years ago and remain at the heart our community. Part-time volunteers are active in everything Cork Simon does, from sitting on our Board of Directors to helping us to fundraise to supporting people to develop life skills such as cooking, literacy and numeracy.
Get Help

Details of services and contact numbers if you are experiencing homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless.
Christmas Jumper Day

Will you hold a Cork Simon Christmas Jumper Day so we can be there for every man and woman turning to us for help this Christmas?
No one wants their child to grow up to be homeless at Christmas."
Sign-up today - it's More Than a Gift.
Services team

Key contacts for our range of services, including Emergency, Outreach, Housing and Housing First, Addiction and Aftercare, and Personal Development services.
Sponsor a Room

As a Room Sponsor you will be helping to save lives. You give a monthly gift, at an amount you can afford, to provide someone who is homeless with a safe room of their own, everything that goes with that, and a pathway to move into independent living. Believing in people.
High-support housing

Our High-Support Houses throughout Cork provide intensive levels of round-the-clock care every day for men and women whose health and other personal support needs are such that living independently is not currently sustainable.
Emergency shelter

Our Emergency Shelter on Anderson’s Quay, in the heart of Cork’s city centre, provides round-the-clock temporary accommodation and one-to one support. Our emergency shelter supports men and women over 18 years of age.

Homeless watch

752 men, women and children were depending on emergency accommodation in Cork and Kerry in February 2024.

Our Emergency Shelter is overflowing. People are staying longer because they have no other options.

Rents in Cork continue to rise while supply remains at an all-time low; Rent Supplement & Housing Assistance Payments fall well-short of current market rents.

See the figures behind the crisis in our regularly updated Homeless Watch Read more

Sponsor a Room

As a Room Sponsor you will be helping to save lives. You give a monthly gift, at an amount you can afford, to provide someone who is homeless with a safe room of their own, everything that goes with that, and a pathway to move into independent living. Believing in people. Read more

50 Faces of Cork Simon

50 Years in the making, decades in the refining. 50 Faces reflecting the thousands of men and women who make us what we are: people believing in people. These are their words, their stories, our experience. Read more

Annual Impact Report 2022

During 2022, we offered care and support, dignity and hope to 1,370 people - a 33% increase compared to 2021. As the last of the Covid restrictions lifted, we quickly restored all our services and responded to additional demand by increasing capacity. Read more

Home Truths: Single Adults Living with their Parents

MARCH 2024. Exploring the increasing proportion of younger adults having to live with their parents and the over-representation of younger adults in emergency accommodation. Read more

Donate

Please donate to help someone who is homeless in Cork make a fresh start.
Read more

Donate