Elderly charity sees fall in donations as demand surges

A CHARITY working with the elderly has seen a huge surge in demand for its services, but a large falloff in public donations.

In a statement yesterday, Alone said it had seen a 150% increase in requests for assistance in recent months.

It is now dealing with almost 200 telephone calls per month, along with maintaining more than 90 residences across Dublin which house older people.

The charity is a central point of contact for many older persons who are in need of assistance to deal with isolation, housing, or day-to-day issues that can affect some older persons so acutely.

The services most in demand include assistance with housing difficulties and maintenance issues which continue to cause hardship to numerous people.

The charity pointed out that loneliness and isolation continue to be a huge factor in the lives of a significant minority of older people.

Alone combats this through its befriending programme, which has also seen an increase in demand this year – there are now 35 isolated older persons on a waiting list for befriending visits.

Chief executive of Alone Seán Moylan said staff and volunteers were becoming increasingly stretched.

"It is our intention to increase the number of volunteers we have, but we are currently faced with the challenge of trying to train new volunteers with limited resources. We have a long waiting list of people wishing to volunteer for the organisation, but are unable to proceed with these applications due to the lack of resources available to us, and an increasingly tight funding situation."

SIC: IE/IE