Homeless plea for HELP

SEVEN men will be bedding down in the cold and wet in Ennis tonight, with little more than cardboard signs and wet blankets to protect them.

Five of these homeless men have been without a roof over their heads since this time last year, when they survived temperatures as low as -14˚C. Pleas for help have been renewed by an advocate for the homeless before temperatures begin to drop once again.
Josephine O’Brien of HELP, an organisation for the homeless, admits she is a bit of a soft touch when it comes to homeless people but it is not unreasonable to feel sorry for these men when faced with of the conditions they live in.
“Most sleep in a field in Ennis, where you have to climb over a fence, go through bushes and then you see where they live. There are two pieces of large auctioneer signs stacked in a V shape, like a makeshift house; over that they have a couple of blankets that are wet from the rain. On the ground, there are loads of blankets, bags and maggots; there are maggots all around the place. They get sick because of it. It’s terrible, only for we know where they are and we leave a cup of coffee on top of the signs, you wouldn’t know they were there. A dog wouldn’t live there; I’d even say the rats wouldn’t live there, it’s awful,” she said.
Josephine explained these men, six of whom are foreign nationals, have slipped through the cracks one way or another after falling on hard times.
The HELP soup run is to be featured on RTÉ’s iWitness programme next month and Sixmilebridge resident Seamus Callagy of Kairos Communications visited the homeless of Ennis recently.
Speaking to The Clare Champion, he gave an account of what he saw. “I was astonished by some of the conditions they are living in. The stench; even though it was a cold night, the place was full of flies. It gave me a bit of a shock. It is easy to see these things as remote and disconnected from real life but when you’re driving back to your nice warm house and bed knowing that they are hunkering down in a wet woollen blanket is astonishing in this day and age. It is ridiculous. How I would describe it is, it is almost like looking at a shanty hovel like you would see in India or in Haiti at the moment but transplanted into a wet and cold climate such as ours, adding the smell and the flies,” Mr Callagy noted.
In a final appeal before temperatures drop or flooding occurs, Josephine O’Brien is asking for help. “What I would like to say is, please don’t have this dragging on for another year or until somebody dies; if someone can do something for them, I would ask that they do it now. They cannot go any lower. It’s desperate, you wouldn’t see it in Africa. If there is anyone at all who can do anything for them, can they do it now before the cold and the really bad weather comes in because I don’t want to find any of them dead. I would be devastated, we know them for so long. They deserve a chance, they are human beings and it breaks my heart,” Josephine urged.
“They talk to me about the conditions sometimes. They say they wish they had a house. That’s why they drink so much, facing down to that, you would have to be drinking. It’s terrible. Going down there, there is a sense of hopelessness. When it rains, it gets all wet and they are sleeping in that. We help with our soup run and if they have medical problems, we try to bring them somewhere and get someone to look after them.
“They could go missing and only for we know them, they are not in the system. They could be dead and no one would miss them, that is terrible,” she concluded.
Those who wish to offer HELP some assistance can do so by getting in touch with Josephine on 085 1232863. HELP will also be holding a bucket day on December 6 in Ennis to provide Christmas dinner for the homeless.