A YOUNG MOTHER who has been homeless with her partner and daughter for over two years has hit out at new family hub accommodation, saying it is not suitable for people and children to live in long-term.
Tarina Knight has been homeless with her partner David and 17-year-old daughter since April 2015. Originally from England, she emigrated here with her daughter in 2014.
Since the family has become homeless, they have stayed in five different emergency accommodation units across Dublin city, while she searched for a place to live.
Tarina has been staying with her daughter at The Townhouse on Lower Gardiner Street since February of this year.
The Townhouse is former guesthouse on Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin city centre that has been used for the past number of years as emergency accommodation to house homeless families.
Renovations are currently underway to convert the accommodation into a “family hub” – supported group family accommodation.
Tarina said that there are currently about 60 rooms occupied by homeless people throughout the guesthouse. She said it is very difficult to live any sort of normal life in the cramped quarters.
“They’re just not suitable places for families to live long-term,” she said.
She shares a room with her daughter on the third floor of the building. They have two beds, a fridge, lockers, a wardrobe and a bathroom.
Tarina said the cramped quarters in which she has lived have made life very stressful for her and her family, as they desperately searched for a place to live.
She has completed a level 5 health course but said it has been difficult to follow up or find any place to work while the family tried to find a home.
She said she has suffered a number of miscarriages since becoming homeless. Recently, she said she had had an argument with her partner and he was no longer allowed stay in the accommodation.
“People need to understand that we’re all on top of each other,” she told TheJournal.ie.
“It’s a stressful situation anyway but if you’re going to argue, you add on top something like that as well.
You’ve got no place to breathe, you’ve got no place to think. That’s the thing.
Residents are given one meal a day to eat in the accommodation. As well as this, Tarina said there is a kitchen with a single cooker for resident families to use.
There are washing machines and a dryer in the building that residents have to pay €4 to operate.
She said her daughter had found it particularly tough. She has been living in homeless accommodation since she was 15, and is due to take her Leaving Certificate next year.
“She’s doing the Leaving Cert next year. She wants to be a heart surgeon, believe it or not,” said Tarina.
But the stress of being homeless is now affecting her grades and her school work. She’s not getting the time to sleep, not getting the time to study.
Solidarity-PBP Dublin City Councillor Michael O’Brien – who had been assisting Tarina with her case – said it was one of the “longest running homeless cases I have been acquainted with as a councillor “.
“What struck me was the major disruption to her daughter’s life in particular, the long commutes to and from school everyday,” he said.
Tarina said that the family had stayed strong and not lost hope throughout their ordeal.
She said they may be offered a place to live in the near future, but wanted to highlight what other families – some with very young children – are going through.
“It’s not so much ourselves I’m worried about, it’s the younger children,” she said.
Because if it’s affecting us the way it is, imagine the way it’s affecting younger children.
It’s never-ending.
Family hub criticism
New family hub accommodation for housing homeless families was announced earlier this year by then-Housing Minister Simon Coveney.
The hub model was introduced as a measure of getting homeless families out of private hotels, and into more suitable supported accommodation.
However, a number of the proposed hubs have come under strong criticism for their location and suitability. The Townhouse is the latest in a number of former hotels and B&Bs that is being converted into a hub.
Commenting on Tarina’s family’s case and family hubs, Anthony Flynn - CEO with homeless advocacy group Inner City Helping Homeless – said that homeless accommodation in Dublin was not fit for purpose.
ICHH have been assisting and advocating on behalf of Tarina and her family for close to two years.
“People have been in unsuitable conditions and accommodation for a long, long time,” he said.
And now it seems like a vicious cycle that people are going to be in these hubs.
Flynn said that he was not against the ideas of hubs “per se”, but that many of the facilities were highly unsuitable.
“We’ve had adults having to sleep in bunk beds, meals at x time, curfew at x time, it’s just not acceptable,” he said.
Flynn called on the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive – which manages homeless services in the Dublin area – to intervene to help families more.
“It’s their job to do this,” he said.
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