The recession, as well as Waterford's burgeoning drug crisis, is changing the face of homelessness in the city.

Speaking to Waterford Today Terence O'Neill, Manager of the Homeless Men's Hostel in Lady Lane said: "I have seen an increase in the number of men coming to us because of the economic situation in the country. Their whole living standards have gone due to huge debts, some have taken to drink and families have broken up. We have a great relationship with the St. Vincent De Paul and MABS which provide an enormous amount of help." Looking towards the future he bluntly says that "most of our work is going to be around the fallout from the economy and the drug situation."

As it stands the hostel provides emergency accommodation for six months for each individual with every person assessed and a project team put in place to deal with the needs of each person. For many years homeless hostels took in individuals without necessarily having any provision to deal with the specific issues that they brought with them. Now the whole situation has become professionalized. Lady Lane currently is a 30 bed facility with a staff of 14 and they do not accept anyone from outside of Waterford except with the consent of the SEHB. Again what they were seeing a lot of in previous years was the situation where the homeless would travel from one city to the other without dealing with any problems they might have. A number of men who would have been long term homeless in the city have moved onto to accommodation in residential facilities for the elderly such as the Holy Ghost and according to Mr. O'Neill "it has been a huge success story, you can really see the difference in the men and as for the older men left in the hostel they will not be moving on and will live out their time in the hostel. They are not capable of living alone."

Returning to the question of drug addiction and the homeless Mr. O'Neill is despondent when he answers the question and says "there has been a big sea change in the profile of homeless men we see and that is around the whole area of drugs. The youngest you can come in to the hostel is 18 but if we were allowed to take them in younger than that we would have no problem in doing so. I have mothers literally crying and begging me to do something but there is nothing I can do. Heroin is the most lethal drug you can imagine, it consumes you, it's lethal. It's constantly there for them and they will do absolutely anything to get heroin. The city is awash with heroin, you go to any city or any village and it's there. It's a 600-700 Euro a week habit for most. There is a waiting list of two years for methadone treatment." He also says that because no doctor in the city will administer methadone then doctors are flown in from Dublin to do so. The doctor is then put up in a hotel for the night and flown back to Dublin the next day. So far this year the hostel have had one overdose and one suicide of men who stay there.

However no matter how bleak the picture looks it would look far worse without the Lady Lane Hostel.