Updated 10.40pm
A LOCAL COUNCILLOR in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown says that a recently homeless woman and her two children attending a shelter were provided with a bloodstained mattress that stank of urine.
Sinn Féin’s Chris Curran says that he was contacted by the mother who was forced to move into the homeless unit last week. He visited her at the shelter and found her to be “visibly upset”:
The stench of urine had a nauseating effect that made me almost wrench. I was outraged when I inspected the property to find a badly bloodstained mattress in the bedroom more reminiscent of tenement times. The mother told me that this was a better mattress to the mattress produced earlier by the official.
Curran was contacted as chairperson of the DLR Housing Action Group, a Sinn Féin organised campaign which was set up prior to the local elections to make housing an issue in the campaign.
He says that the conditions presented to the family show that an “urgent review” is needed into homeless accommodation in the area.
“The council fund these operations and the service provided seems to fall well below a standard of accommodation to facilitate children. I would challenge any councillor in Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown to bring their families and live in the facility for a week.”
The DLR Housing Action Group posted the above photograph to their Facebook page yesterday, saying that attitude the woman faced was one of “take it or leave it”.
“People end up in homeless accommodation for all sorts of reasons. It could happen to any of us over the period of a couple of pay packets,” added Curran
TheJournal.ie is awaiting a response from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown about the photograph.
First published 10.18am
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