I left Dublin in 1991 and arrived back on February 17th, 2010. I had €700 to my name and holes in my shoes. I couldn’t recognise the city, and I had burnt so many bridges during my lifetime that I had nobody to turn to.
I’d been a labourer in France, making my way from town to town. I had a rule: if I didn’t find work in three days, I moved on. It was a way of life I lived by, and in a recession hit Dublin, it completely failed me. I went around building sites and spoke to security guards. They looked at me like I was from another planet.
Looking back I know I should have used the money to take a room in a house. But I hesitated and made the wrong choice. I ran out of money. At first I just slept in the living room of tourist hostels, sneaking in whenever a guest opened the door. I soon got caught, and then I was on the streets. It changed me. You spend all that time watching your own mental state deteriorate at an alarming speed. It feels overwhelming. It’s humiliating.
I kept myself clean and tidy. I walked around. But the critical voice in my head always followed. A voice fuelled by self-doubt and shame. Then at night I’d be on the streets or lying fully clothed in a hostel bed, clutching my backpack to my chest, with my shoes in the pillow under my head. Sometimes a person would be coming to check on someone who had overdosed on drugs every 20 minutes. No privacy. No space.
It changed for me when I heard about the Iveagh Hostel. I made my way there and as luck would have it, a room was available. You get your own space there, and deal with a Community Welfare Officer. That led to me getting rent allowance, meaning I could afford to pay the €115 rent every week.
It’s different in other hostels. In some of them you’re up by 07.00 for breakfast and out the door at 08.00. You can’t get back in till 20.00. That’s 12 empty hours to pass on the streets. Often by yourself, with only your thoughts for company. “What is this? Why is it happening? What’s going on? Why am I here? I shouldn’t be here. This doesn’t happen to people like me.”
At one of my lowest points I was standing on Eustace St, and I could feel two poles in me pulling me in different directions. One of them wanted to get a bottle of whiskey and go on a rampage. The other wanted me to slip unnoticed into the river, inhaling as soon as I hit the water. Not to breathe in, but to draw in the water.
Through force of will I forced myself to stop listening to that self-critical voice. Being middle class arms you against recognising when you need help. I’ve slowly come around to accepting that my problems are focused around one event in my life. I am a sexual-abuse survivor, and going wild and burning bridges in my life was my way of dealing with that. Or not dealing with it.
For seven months I lived in the hostel. With men trying to kick in my door at night. With dope drifting in under the door. Wondering why I was there. It was exhausting. I’ve since moved into a house in Crumlin with a friend. There have been times when I’ve had to tap the streets, walking around passively begging, in order to pay my rent.
Since then I’ve qualified for a Back to Work Enterprise Allowance, and I’ve worked to establish a business as a carpenter. To rebuild my confidence. Rebuild my bridges.
Having spent time in India where there is no welfare system, it is evident how fortunate we are here in Ireland to have the levels of support and care which exist. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to all of the people who helped me and indeed challenged me during my time on the streets and in shelters. My regard of the services is borne from my own experiences during that time.
The fact is that I am a well educated, articulate and very well travelled man. I have always felt that I had an unfair advantage in many ways. I had the vocabulary, the ability to empathise with the authorities I met and the wherewithal to fight for what I knew was my entitlement. This I was capable of without raising my voice. Here lies the basis of the unfair advantage. Most of the people with whom I came into contact were not even aware of the existence of these capabilities. Most of them, including the service providers, are locked in a dynamic of ‘Us and Them’.
This disconnect is core to the homelessness issue in our society.
I spend a lot of time on the streets with members of the homeless community. Most homeless people will admit that it is when passersby stop and connect with them as real people that is most valuable. This individual validation is a need which we all share.
Why do I spend time with the homeless? I want to present myself as living proof that it is possible to emerge from a situation from within which it seems unimaginable to escape. I want to try to help them to understand how their presence on our streets impacts upon the general public.
I try to explain to homeless people that their presence can frighten members of the general public, many of whom themselves struggle with precarity in various forms in their own lives. For us to really look and engage with another human being sitting on the street in the rain or the cold is perhaps too frightening, perhaps too painful. We have no control over others’ judgements of ourselves, but we can change our judgements of others. Most of the people with whom I share these thoughts express gratitude. It seems to help them accept their circumstances a little more.
The reasons and circumstances which lead to any individual becoming homeless are many and varied. I was one of the ‘invisible homeless’. I certainly didn't ‘look’ homeless. I certainly didn't ‘sound’ homeless. I didn’t have a drink problem, I didn't smoke tobacco nor take drugs. I did however have mental health problems and my self-esteem was such that I denied myself the right to reach out and to ask for help.
When it comes to solving homelessness, details are important. The homeless are all different people, and resolving the route of the problem starts with questions: are they estranged from their family? Have they been released from prison or discharged from hospital? Has their business gone bust? Has their marriage just ended? Do they have mental health issues? Do they have a substance-abuse problem? A criminal record? Are they employed? Do they have a medical conditions? Do they have the required medication? Are they fleeing from domestic violence? Or from sexual violence? Are they living in their car? Do they have children? Do they have financial debts? Do they have any friend they could call upon for help? Do they have issues around their sexuality?
The list goes on and on. But it has to start somewhere. That’s what matters.
It is true that the stereotypical homeless person exists. A person with a drink/drug problem, possibly engaged in criminal activity, in and out of prison and Garda stations, unpredictable in nature and prone to aggression. The reality is that these people are a small minority within a much broader community all labelled by society as homeless.
Can we eradicate all of the mitigating circumstances that lead to people becoming homeless? Certainly not. To expect so would be simply to expect life itself to change and that is not going to happen. Can we change our attitudes to homeless people? Yes, we certainly can. Indeed we must, if we wish to think that we can deal with the situation.
I do not criticise the systems of support as they exist today. They are filled with people who do very difficult jobs. People who go out of their way to help. I do, however, believe that improvement is both possible and necessary.
A man died on the streets, meters from Leinster House, and the Taoiseach says there’ll be beds for everyone by Christmas. Enda Kenny then spent three hours on the streets. It's shameful, he said. It's a disgrace.
To me, it’s a disgrace that he’s nearly four years in office and that was his first night on the streets. That a homeless man has to freeze to death before our leader takes notice.
