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CAMPED WITH HIS brother, their friend (and their dog) in parkland not far from some of south Dublin’s most expensive homes, Anthony Brophy tells a familiar story.
In and out of care as teenager, he has been homeless for long stretches of his adult life. It’s now three years since the 32-year-old last had a permanent place to call home.
He’s trying to save up a deposit to get back into private rental accommodation. But it’s hard.
“It’s very hard to save when you’re in this situation.
“It’s so cold and you have to get off the streets. There’s no home to go and sit in and keep warm. You’ve to pay to go to the like of McDonalds or Subway or somewhere to just sit in to stay dry.”
Frustrated with the lack of emergency beds and the state of certain hostels in the city – “some places you wouldn’t put your dog in them” – for the last three weeks Anthony, his brother Wallace and their friend Michael have taken to walking the tracks last thing at night to camp on a green area at the back of a housing estate in Dublin 14.
They’re striking camp as we talk: the three tents wrapped and folded away, belongings packed into rucksacks and black plastic bags.
Later, they’ll head back to the city to get some food before making the trek to the suburbs once again.
“We were in Merrion Square,” Anthony explains.
“We were camping in Merrion Square. The guards came in and tried to muscle us out, so we decided to leave. Not through any problems we were causing or anything like that, just because they said it was a private park.”
Three years homeless
Almost 2,500 adults without children are now homeless across the State, along with 1,571 children, and 980 parents.
In Anthony’s experience, getting back into employment and finding full-time housing can be a near-impossible task, once you’re long-term homeless.
Problems at his rental properly led to him losing his home, last time around.
“I was living in private rental for five years and the landlord I was renting off wasn’t the real landlord he was sub-letting. When the person that owned the building came back they got the banks and the bailiffs in. They kicked me out and I became homeless.
“I’m three years homeless this time around. I was ten years homeless before.”
Taking care of yourself without regular access to plumbing isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but as Anthony points out:
“I don’t dress homeless, I wash myself every day. I’ve clean clothes every day.”
Homeless crisis
Despite the government saying last December that there should be no need for anyone in Dublin to sleep rough unless they make that choice themselves, Anthony says it’s often the case that there are no beds left when you call the emergency helpline.
“There’s a lot more homeless people around now than there ever have been.
“You can ring up the freephone but you’re never guaranteed a bed and the best they can do for you is give you a sleeping bag when there’s no beds left.”
Says Anthony:
“Thanks to the soup runs and all that there is a place we can go and get something to eat. Not everybody starves or goes cold. They do help us a lot with clothes.”
He’s putting his name down for the Housing First scheme – which is jointly run by the Council and charities like the Peter McVerry Trust – but doesn’t hold out much hope of getting a place.
As for their temporary camp-site:
“We’ve no time limit on this. If we have to, we’re going to be here over Christmas if it’s necessary.”
Locals have been “sound” he adds, and there’s been no problems.
“They’d be out picking berries. There’s two people come in with their dog and our dog, Frankie, plays with them.”
On the subject of alcohol and drugs, he says “Years ago I used to like my drink … I used to get into trouble”.
None of them take drugs at all, he says. ”The odd time you’d have an odd bottle in the lane, just standing down the laneway. You’d have a bottle and that’s it, like.”
Lack of emergency beds
Francis Doherty of the Peter McVerry Trust agreed there had been problems securing enough emergency accommodation for rough sleepers in recent months.
“The 271 beds that came on stream have filled up fairly rapidly.”
He said he expected efforts would be made to increase the number of beds available heading into the winter months.
Single people currently face “huge challenges” when it comes to securing social housing, according to Doherty. Private rental accommodation, while it may be a preferred option, “has almost completely been shut off due to the increase in rents and the failure to increase rent supplement”.
While a limited number of schemes, including home-sharing options, are being made available for adults “there’s no question politically, families are the priority”.
Enough beds?
When asked about emergency accommodation, the Council-run Dublin Region Homeless Executive told us its annual cold weather action plan would begin on Monday week.
“This annual proactive measure is undertaken each year as winter approaches with the emphasis being to have a variety of additional options for people who generally do not/or cannot avail of existing services.”
Asked, via email, to confirm whether there were currently enough emergency beds for anyone who requests one, the DRHE sent a list of figures that showed an increase of 215 in the number of beds available since the start of the year.
Referring again to the winter plan, a spokesperson added:
“We will be bringing in a significant number of additional beds to meet the consistent increase in presentation of families and adult individuals to homeless services.”
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€50 million is spent on the 1916 celebrations next year with this crisis going on. How about spending €1m instead and using the other €49m to provide accommodation to these people?
I imagine Connolly would have agreed with you. But the answer will be ‘tourist revenue will greatly exceed…etc’. Not that this was a factor considered for the Dublin Web Summit, mind.
Why would the gov want to solve issues with homeless, hospitals, schools when they could spend millions on partying not that they require a reason to party.
Millions goes into homelessness already, more money won’t make any difference. There should be one state backed homeless charity, say Peter McVerry, where people can donate and take out the huge levels of admin/management that comes with having 20 different organisations.
Cherish all the children of the Republic. Action speaks louder
Homelessness is an inevitable result of 30+ years of neo liberal government policy where housing is treated as a profit center for the rentier elite and assorted vested interests in banking, law, auctioneering etc. As long as this continues, we will suffer the consequences as a society as demonstrated in the property bubble, inevitable crash, family home evictions, and the current soaring rack rents and homelessness crisis.
There would be no scarcity of accommodation in Ireland if the government would play it’s proper role in ensuring the citizens had access to decent and affordable housing both rented and bought.
This would require modifying the taxation and legal systems to encourage owner occupier home purchase and strongly discourage property speculation.
In parallel the state needs to construct the necessary volumes of social housing and fundamentally reform the private rental sector with an immediate rent freeze and progressive rent reductions to affordable levels, banning economic evictions and ensuring security of tenure.
Better still, why not cut the funding to the self-interest quango lobby sector – the ones that like to pretend they have something to offer to Ireland.
AAA, being against austerity is right, but you undo all that protest by being for immigration, either this country is for it’s people or it’s valuable, finite resources are for all, like you open-borders extremists like to say…IRELAND IS FOR ALL. There is only one path that hits the international predators, no to austerity, no to immigration. Ireland for it’s native people.
So Wally it looks like you want the state to become a bigger landlord and that they should tax the working people in Ireland to pay for it. Social housing in this country has already created social disaster areas and you want want more of it! Out of interest if you were ever able to introduce your plan as outlined, when the accidental landlords can no longer afford the mortgage on their buy to let property (because you have reduced their rental income and imposed higher taxes so they have less take home pay). Did you consider that your plan would escalate the rental situation and make some of the landlord and renters worse off?
well said one umbrella group Peter Verry for instance since it does so much. The way homelessness is being handled however many groups is with the usual incompetence we see, moved on from Merrion and th way they are otherwise moved from public view shows us how willing the gov are to make us seem in great recovery for the tourists
The lads and their dog may wait , there are 4600 Syrians etc and assorted Asylum Seekers getting preference and these will have the same rights as Irish people , in effect they will have more rights than these guys , take a bow Aodgain O Riordain and his PR people , the Irish Times and RTE
@Mike Cantwell,
Don’t forget their families who will arrive later, that’ll make it around 30,000. Also there will be far far more arriving next year.
Tough read..why cant that group of 3..almost a family..be treated as a family as opposed to childless single people..if the will was there to help then surely rent supplement x3 could be pooled in the short term to get them off the streets..of all the single people experiencing homelessness how many could genuinely house share with other singles?
How can the homeless crisis be solved? Who will take charge and make decisions ?
Well Alan Kelly claims the government are ‘on top of it,’ so unless he’s a lying, two-faced, deceitful, incompetent piece of crap, there is no crisis.
Peter…
Must have been great before this mob took power they obviously created the homelessness, and all the other ills in Irish society, but not to worry if you (foolishly ) elect SF/ independents….these homeless will dissappear in no time, because people will automatically stop substance abuse, and of course no one will buy an overpriced home (off the plans) they can’t afford. …no more hospital waiting lists (vested interest asside! ) “ordinary working people” love that term, won’t have to pay tax .Enda amd Joans huge pension will be capped at the average industrial wage, (of course the “permanent government will agree to all this, NOT) it will be Jerrys way or Brussels way…..we all know how that will go!! ….etc etc
Defending the indefensible, Bill.
@ Peter… .not defending anything just pointing out that Nirvana is not at the end of the Opposition rainbow as so many people might think. This current lot said much of what the opposition are saying….remember in opposition it’s easy to point to the failure of the current Gov and you can promise ANYTHING FG/LAB promised the sun moon and stars but suddenly found the couldn’t or wouldn’t fulfil the promises, you can’t seriously think the opposition will keep their election promises just because it is SF etc.
Nobody is suggesting that voting for the opposition will solve all problems. But voting this crowd again certainly wont solve anything. They’ve had four years (and counting) to prove they’ll make a difference, and they have come up not only short, but just as bad as the last crowd. Voting the same incompetent and corrupt gombeens into power time and time again is madness. You can be terrified of the opposition all you want, but the current government have been an abject failure when it comes to the homelessness crisis.
Peter…so let’s other incompetent, coruupt gombeens, instead, don’t forget it’s the permanent gov (civil service) who do most of the policy donkey work and is delivered by the ministers in the Dail (we don’t really think mike Noonan or Howlen actually work out a budget!) I wouldnt let some of them TDs wss my car…..PS the same CS are there now as we’re there during the crash and will be there when the next government is elected, and if anyone thinks SF /AAA etc will get rid of the CS the country would grind to a halt in 24 hours as TD would be lucky to get in the Dail DOOR let alone work!!!
Put simply nothing really changes as the Civil Service is there since before independence
It’s always the Irish who end up homeless, every foreigner gets far better treatment than our own people.
Eamon, blaming others is not a solution to any problem. You and Mike Cantwell have expressed similar sentiments. The similarities do not end there. Both of you have relatively new Facebook accounts, both of you have very few Facebook ‘friends’, both of you are Facebook friends with each other, both of you posted similar sentiments on the same day and within a relatively short period. The world is full of coincidences.
@Tap Solny,
Who made you facebook policeman, Mr Pat Lyons? As much as I am flattered to be accused as being the same person as Mike Cantwell it is alas untrue.
I think you’ve too much time on your hands, Pat.
Good answer Eamon. That made me smile.
Busted – lol.
Is that the park Enda sat in last week for twenty minutes? This week the guards arrive to clear it?
Mary that’s last weeks news. Doesn’t Enda walk to work each morning so he can meet the real person going to work & talk to them. That is one way of finding out who is going to work & paying tax so he can spend it on crap.
Yes indeed, they run our homeless out of the parks in case the tourists see them while they accommodate economic migrants in hotels.
beyond disgraceful. . These problems CAN be sorted but enda et Al chose to spend their time spinning yarns about how great they are, opening food banks and slighting other parties for things that either happened decades ago or in a jurisdiction that have nothing to do with them! It’d be funny if it wasn’t so terribly sad.
You previously posted disparaging remarks about Maria Cahill while expressing admiration for Pearse Doherty, a ‘politician’ that is a member of a party that lives in a mythological past that stretches back almost 1,000 years. I think I can understand where you are coming from.
not long to wait now thank god,right across the country people just want the GE, to wipe these two parties out ,along with ff,renua.never seen as many people interested in government behavior for a long time,and they are not impressed with the corruption, lies,and elitism.
Mike is right
how about putting some of the 1916 celebrations money in to fixing up all the empty council houses and giving them out the the people who need them … it won’t solve all of the issues but it would be a start … and I am sure that some people wouldn’t mind sharing a house until they get back on their feet
I must say I find this homeless situation shameful to us as a nation. This situation should not be tolerated we need to look after our own people first. I raise money for the homeless constantly and recently completed 150 k cycle Dublin to Wexford for Peter Mc Verry Trust with many other greatly concerned people and still the situation gets worse. The waste and squandering of money by Government is disgusting and its our money!
Charity begins at home!
Lot of homeless people in Waterford too. All around the country actually.
Even the homeless crisis has to be Dublin centric it seems.
This crisis needs to be tackled. I think drug testing should be used to determine who gets accomaded first.
There’s a big problem in that homeless people who are down on their luck and who are non addicts are being bunched in with addicts, people with mental health problems and much more on floors of Merchants Quay, and in shared accommodation whereby they feel their lives are endangered by aggravated, near psychotic people who could do them serious harm. It’s dangerous and degrading and if you were sane before living through something like it, you won’t be when you spend much time in that environment, which is why most choose an alleyway with a sleeping bag instead, having known someone who went through it and left the country because of it, I can’t say I blame them doing this at all.
The opw and Dcc council own loads and loads of buildings around the city that are boarded up! for example the old driving licence building beside the 4 courts. can this not be transferred into a hostel for homeless people? also open up hostels for the homeless that charge people per night which the government covers completely. they would then be kept clean and safe
lots of available social housing outside of Dublin… why can’t this be used?
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