AN OUT PATIENT at Beaumont hospital facing eviction has said that he will go on hunger strike over his inability to find a new home for himself, his wife and his three children.
Brian Nason says that he has been renting his Fairview home for seven years but has been told he must leave because his landlord is selling the house.
He told TheJournal.ie that he has been trying to find a new home in the area for over three months but has been unable to do so. This, he says, is because the price of rental houses in the area is between €1,600-€1,800 a month and that landlords are refusing to accept rent allowance.
Nason says that he has 10 years of receipts showing that himself and his wife are reliable tenants. He adds that, even if a landlord was accepting rent allowance, the 4 to 5 weeks you need to wait for it to be granted mean that they’ll likely find someone else first.
Nason says that he is reluctantly planning to stay in the house but has thought about registering with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive:
There is a waiting list for the homeless list. You go to Parkgate Street, I’m dreading that myself, then they put you on a list to be be homeless. Then they can maybe find you a bed and breakfast or maybe a hotel but even then that takes a few weeks and you need to find somewhere to stay in between.
“They’re going to have to take me out. I’ll be first the eviction from a rental,” he adds.
Nason has three children, aged 22 months, 10 years and 20 years, and says that he doesn’t want to leave the north Dublin area particularly because his 10-year-old girl is doing well at her school.
Asked if he had considered moving outside of Dublin he says that this isn’t an option for a number of reasons.
“My wife works in Beaumont hospital and I also need to be near Beaumont hospital for various medical reasons,” he says.
He adds that himself and his Thailand-born wife had lived outside Dublin before but racism forced them to move to the capital. As a result, he said they moved to Dublin and settled there.
Homeless march
Today, the Irish Housing Network is planning a march from the GPO to Leinster House in protest at what they say is the government’s attempt to “brush this housing and homeless crisis under the carpet”.
The march is scheduled to begin at 4pm with the organisers asking those taking part to bring pots and pans so they can “make some noise”.
Nason says that he will be taking part in the protest before deciding on his hunger strike. He says that he has been told by doctors that he is risking a stroke or heart attack because of his pancreatic problems and blood sugar levels.
He says he is going on hunger strike because he believes that “nobody’s listening” and he wants to “shame” the government into action.
‘Appalling’
Local TD Finian McGrath has been helping Nason find a new home for his family and says that there are 5,000 people on the housing list in the area.
McGrath says that he’s been lobbying Dublin City Council on the man’s behalf to make him a priority based on his health.
“I’m telling Brian to stay (in the home). I just think it’s appalling, there are medical priority cases and there is too much nonsense being talked,” McGrath says.
The deputy adds that he is “out the door” with the number of people coming to him looking for help because of the housing crisis.
McGrath says that he told Nason to be careful about going on hunger strike but that he will continue to support him in his actions.
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