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BROTHER KEVIN CROWLEY, who runs the Capuchin Day Centre for the homeless in Dublin, has said his biggest fear every year is the approaching winter as he worries about the numbers of people sleeping rough in freezing temperatures.
In a recent interview with TheJournal.ie, the Franciscan brother said he has seen a noticeable jump in the demand for the centre’s services since it started serving soup and sandwiches to about 50 people in the city each day in 1969.
It now feeds around 800 people a day between breakfast and lunch and distributes 1,700 food parcels each week.
“As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing has gotten far worse and for homeless people certainly it’s gotten worse in the sense that the numbers of homeless people who are still on the streets, lying on the streets at night time, not sufficient accommodation – that hasn’t got better, that has gotten worse,” he said.
Crowley said winter coming closer is “always my fear”.
How many people are going to die on the street? And people have died on the street.
We had a man coming in here who sleeps in a cemetery because he finds it’s the safest place for him and he sleeps there every night. He has fears of going into a hostel and then there are other times that when he tries to get into hostels, he can’t get accommodation – and that’s absolutely appalling.
Brother Crowley also spoke of a man two years ago who slept outside all night in freezing weather. When he arrived, his beard was frozen solid. “We had to thaw him out”, he recalled. The man later died of a suspected heroin overdose and was found in the street.
He said another huge concern for him is the level of drug addiction in the city among the homeless population.
“That’s very, very serious and people are sort of looking down on them and seeing them as hopeless cases,” he said. “They are hopeless cases because there’s nowhere for them to go.”
“On numerous occasions we have had people in who have overdosed and luckily, thank God, we had a doctor and nurse on the premises – otherwise they’d have died.”
He said he would urge the government to work on providing sufficient accommodation for homeless people through the winter and put proper structures in place to help people overcome their addictions.
Pic: Andrew Bennett via Flickr/Creative Commons
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Found myself homeless in London at the tender age of 18. I’m not a junkie or a drunk. Just bad luck really. Thankfully it only lasted for 6 weeks and I was on a boat home. 25 years later I’m married with a mortgage and kids. I look on that as a positive experience which opened my eyes to that world. Not all homeless people are drunks or junkies and none of them certainly deserve it.
Very well done the Journal for this whole series of articles!
I notice the ‘just get a job’ brigade don’t seem to be commenting at all? Are they even reading these pieces I wonder?
Or maybe they don’t want to read about a reality that doesn’t fit their ‘binary’ world view? Where everybody has the same opportunities in life, the same circumstances, the same ability to deal with life’s problems. And in which therefore, exist just two types of people – the hard working and successful (like themselves), and the lazy, who deserve (and get) nothing at all, except a Simon Community blanket and a meal.
So what about the politicians and public service officials that forever dodge any responsibility for alleviating all this? There’s only two possibilities isn’t there? Neither of which reflects well on them. They either couldn’t care less or they actually believe some of our citizens are not ‘deserving’ of even basic accomodation and food.
And, as people can see for themselves, we are talking about the most vulnerable people here. Many, if not all, with some degree of mental health problems.
Welcome to the +real+ non-binary world everybody.
The real world. Where there are +not+ simply +two+ kinds of people. Those who can find and hold down a job & deal with the shortage of decent living accomodation perfectly ably, and the rest that are sufficiently mentally ill to be ‘living’ as medicated zombies in our appalling Mental Hospitals.
Welcome to the life of the ones that fall somewhere in between the neat little boxes that the callous ‘just get a job’ brigade and equally uncaring political leaders do not either care, or even think about.
It’s not huge numbers, a few 10s of thousands (including those who’ve managed to cope with the hurdles and deliberate stalling of the Housing List and Rent Allowance officials) have somewhere to live, but are incapable for the time being of fighting for an all too scarce job opportunity.
Try getting on that housing list – a prerequisite for getting rent allowance. A kafka-esque nightmare of months of deliberate stalling, attempts to fob off, misinformation and just plain incompetence from Council officials. If you’re lucky, it will take you 3 months. And in fine Irish Catch22 style, whether you get the rent claim backdated is apparently at the ‘discretion’ of the RA welfare officer. (Good luck with that if the SW officer hasn’t already made their disgust for you entirely obvious… )
So, if you find yourself homeless and jobless, and don’t have friends or family that can +give+ you the €2,000 you will need in deposit and rent money until your claim comes thru’… well, welcome to the streets and the Simon Community. (I say ‘give’ because there’s no chance on benefits of repaying such a sum….)
And if this is not bad enough, our young people, arguably (as the stats show) the most vulnerable in times of mass unemployment (lack of jobs), as now, are doubly screwed by the callous behaviour of our authorities. If you’re under 25, the dole was cut down to a mean €100 / week. Hard enough to live on…. but the double screw comes in because you are obliged to use €30 of that toward your weekly rent…. leaving you only €70 to live on.. to pay for everything… food, clothes, bus fares and feeding that rip-off prepay meter for the even more expensive electric fire heating that all all you’ll find in the ‘Rent Allowance Accepted’ accomodation that you counted yourself lucky to get anyway.
And all of this is so unnecessary. The government can easily borrow to build social & affordable housing. The rental income covers the costs of lending.
The only reason not to do it is to maintain housing as a scarce commodity so that the top few percent – the Capital owners – can screw you for higher rents & more Capital gains. And the political classes are up to their snouts in the same game. There is no ‘democracy’. They do not represent the interests of the majority ordinary citizens, rather just those of themselves & the elites.
Apparently according to the government Ireland is on the way up. I fear that while that may be true for some many will be left behind….
I’m sure none of them will be asylum seekers.
no there all in direct privision prisons
It’s time for the Social Workers to get together and Sue the Government as this is a disability case and everyone is paying for it homeless or not.
Government can you hear the steps marching – be ready you will have to answer to this.
Tick-tock!!!!
There’s 100s of empty apartments facing Tallaght hospital. Never been lived in since completion. Nama owns them now and has even recently given them a service so why can’t they be used? I hear a lot of people saying they want/deserve a house with a garden but what’s wrong with an apartment?
If the government would ringfence a decent chunk of the Irish Water tax annually and put it into solving homelessness I would be happy with that. Or suicide prevention and mental health issues even. All of which the government promised to be proactive on over the past few years. But never did anything about. Bottom line if we are paying higher taxes in local charges we want to see changes in our local areas. and less talk about change and reform and more action and less cost to the taxpayer.
I’m sick of this homeless stuff just house them in the one complex and give. Them dole ?? Or if they can’t handle that they shud be in care ??
If I wasn’t familiar with the journal and it’s mysterious ways, upon opening the app I would be led to believe that the majority of Irish people are in fact homeless. It’s great to highlight a serious issue however multiple articles on the same topic in one week is a bit OTT.
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