Ireland’s hidden homeless crisis: my life in a hotel room

[Music] the bag was the antibiotic says oh here that's what an antibiotic is Nuala and her daughter Laura are homeless for the last two weeks this hotel room has been their home there is no normality it's the not knowing the uncertainty the insecurity despair and what is school to become of you then failure in AB de quest parent and it just spirals out of control okay getting up in the morning getting ready oh my gosh that in itself you have to deem as an achievement and sort to say okay when you've done it today more than nine thousand seven hundred people across islands are living like this in emergency accomodation now my daughter goes to college I make a point of getting up and dropping her in because I would hate to think what I would become if I didn't have that focus I see a tuition fee not sticker Nunez landlord was forced to sell by his creditors an increasingly common situation in Ireland following the financial crisis she was told with only three months notice to find a new place to live okay the you store is here on the left that's where all our belongings are stored until we finally got somewhere to go home in reality it slaps you in the face this was our life this was our home and then we have neither something in the box I'm just no one in this we could have been still there oh my god yeah little an envelope in there I hope it's not Laura's bank account stuff how long we live in here nine and a half years strange that I can't go in I was sort of half expected to see blinds down for sale sign you know but now it's lying empty you love God you know you do get past that stage you just become I suppose numb and just go what could have been what might have been you know there was no need for me to be out so soon and so I don't know what the delay is and putting this off for sale and I'm not angry when they first registered as homeless six weeks ago the council placed new law and Laura in various hostels on a night by night basis the hotel placement is more secure but Nuala has to call every two weeks to reapply for their room [Music] for 20 minutes hello yeah that book and my fecal cramp there and the wait times up to the morning of the 14 oh yeah okay Happy Days thank you so much okay have a good day bye do you want done two weeks yeah I'd rather be I don't have a home there is a chronic shortage of social housing in island governments just haven't been building council houses as an alternative authorities offer a housing assisted payment scheme or half under which councils pay rent to private landlords Nuala qualifies for HAP but under the terms of the scheme it's her responsibility to find a home to rent on the open market and in Island today those are few and far between everyday she goes to the library to search for properties and apply for viewings it's a nightmare it's an absolute nightmare all you want it's just that one person to say I'm going to give these two girls a chance thank you so much she sends out at least five applications a day but in five months she's had no luck rental properties are so in demand that few even make it to a public viewing your confidence takes a battering every single time and there's only so many times she can be knocked down and you can't get back up if you don't apply you won't know okay Roger Berkeley has been in a state agent in Dublin for 40 years I have never seen it this chronic for tenants in how difficult it is to find a home I've never seen as it is now even though you know the rents have gone up they're skyrocketing they're up over rents that would have been 1200 euro a month five years ago they're now over 2,000 a month what would you say the causes of this current crisis lack of supply our houses our properties or apartments for the increasing number of tenants that are coming to the market we're coming up to a house in Palmerston that we recently let so with this house here was this like a exemplary case of how the rental market works at the moment this all this happen yeah and that was a house to win for 2,000 a month and this is the one thing about homeless half you can have last year's professionals are this year's homeless app sometimes it's like putting a bandaid on an open wound it's it's shoveling money at a problem it's not solving the problem the problem is going to be solved by more housing being available for tenants a succession of Irish governments has relied on private developers to construct the country's social housing but the private sector has failed to deliver a you on a waiting list for a council house I am I've been honest now I would say seven years and I'm listed in around the 600 mark so possibly another six or more years Nuala is one of more than 70,000 people on a waiting list for a council house but despite the huge demand this current government has built fewer than 500 homes since it was elected in 2016 this government formed in May 2016 priority number one was to lead with the housing situation at that time and we recognized that you can't fix the housing supply issue overnight so we put together a five-year plan which we launched in August 2016 but according to that plan that's 85 percent of the total of new social housing is actually going to be provided by the private sector until 2021 we've matured our plan is with a six billion spend of taxpayers money is to deliver 50,000 new social houses do you agree that the solution to the housing crisis is for the government and the local authorities to be building more housing absolutely and that's exactly what we are doing you've got 1,300 families and Dublin alone doing currently an emergency accommodation which means moving from hotel room from night tonight or week week so we're trying to make sure that all people haven't spent a very short time in that emergency accommodation and then move on to a more permanent house and that can be a rented house or a purpose-built house but what they want is a house and literally every week we have a housing discussion I wasn't meeting to make sure we stick to our plans of investing taxpayers money in new social houses and that's a world of built by the government and not by developers it by the government yes we it is a combination of ways of building houses I mean mr. Mapp was a 50 vote and put the blocks together naturally you pay builders to do that for this state money building state houses that the state will own while Island waits for these promised houses to be built there's little option for the almost 10,000 people squeezed out of the private rental market and into hotels and hostels but to wait and hope how are you feeling you able to sleep I'm on medication antidepressants and anti-anxiety without those I wouldn't have that baseline of normality and really it's not healthy to be living in this environment and a certainly isn't healthy for your child to witness a parent whom supposed to keep her safe and secure is now lacking in self-confidence and motivation oh my god it is always that knot in your stomach that never leaves you you know the people in reception know you're homeless and you're wondering how they perceive you go on go for paddle hubs [Laughter] you do feel that bit of stigma that is a touch with our homeless you automatically assume a rough sleeper down Lee knows someone who may be addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling you don't expect it to be just normal people okey dokey pops all right before it upset the homeless charity focus Island has been helping Nuala and Laura since they were first made homeless they've put them on a short list of families to be considered for a flat which is being offered exclusively to have tenants this is the second time the charity has put them forward for a flat in this block they missed out on the last one he was here last week with her obviously mom Bob's its boobie baby here we go again it's a bigger block like you're afraid to get your hopes up I suppose we have to have some sort of hope so fingers crossed just somewhere to call home somewhere you can cook and wash yeah hopefully hopefully

Channel: The Guardian

Views: 394,331

Keywords: homelessness, homeless, ireland, dublin, housing crisis, financial crisis, housing, hidden homeless, poverty, documentary, homeless people, homeless in dublin, housing crisis ireland, irish, landlords, council house, homeless women, poverty in ireland, homeless in ireland, life in ireland, ireland poverty, homelessness in ireland, ireland housing crisis, my ireland, guardian, ireland homeless, dublin housing crisis, dublin homeless, living in ireland, homeless kids, homeless children

Id: PRSicUnEHm8

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 20 2018