The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A HEALTHCARE assistant in Shannon is currently living in his car, with apparently little prospect of finding a place to live in the town.
James McCarthy now sleeps in his Toyota Yaris, while he feeds himself with fast food. Although he has been estranged from his wife for years and they are divorced, she allows him to take showers at her house.
He said that he has tried to get accommodation in homeless hostels, but there isn’t a place available, particularly with Covid prevalent.
While he works full time in a role that requires Garda vetting on a regular basis, he feels that his membership of the Travelling community counts against him when it comes to renting accommodation. “They still look at me as a McCarthy knacker from Limerick. I’m not known to the Gardai, I’m a quiet man, I’ve never blackguarded anyone, but people watch things,they see things, and this is what they think.”
He left his last house after windows were broken there, not by himself, while he actually paid for them to be repaired, at a cost of almost €750.
It is around seven months since James left that accommodation and things have become progressively more difficult. “For the first couple of months it wasn’t too bad, I had places to go to and couches to sleep on. Now, as you know yourself, you kind of feel unwelcome after a while.”
He was also able to stay with other people during the worst of the cold weather in the winter, but basically spends almost every night in the car.
Trying to sleep in a car is not very easy. “It’s very annoying, very annoying. The car is tiny, she’s only a Toyota Yaris. I’m a fairly small man myself, but it is uncomfortable. Look, that’s all I can do for the moment. I have a pillow in there, I take it with me in the night time and in the morning I drop it over to the house (his ex wife’s house) so it won’t get green mould or anything.”
His ex wife also allows him to have a shower and freshen himself up for work.
He often sleeps in the car near that house, because he is nervous. “Shannon isn’t what it used to be, not what it used to be at all. I get nervous to be honest with you, so I park up there, it’s safer. Before she’d be up out of bed I’d be gone again. I wouldn’t sleep much anyway, but it is uncomfortable. Going to work tired, it’s annoying.”
While he was living a quite healthy life before coming omeless, his diet has suffered as cooking a meal isn’t an option. “I haven’t had a proper dinner in ages. I have Subways and Supermacs. On bad days I’d get myself a loaf of bread,a packet of ham, a packet of cheese and onion taytos and a pint of milk. That’d pull me through for a while.
“I was doing well until all this happened, I was exercising and everything, but that’s all gone out the window.”
Shanelle Waring is James’ manager in the home health care provider they both work for and she says she has been very touched by his plight. “My heart is broke for James. He’s in an awful situation.”
She said James has been in his current role for over two years and is very popular with those who use the services. “They clients love him, they love him.”
His colleagues weren’t aware of the issue for quite a while, she says, “He’s a very proud man. We knew something was going on, but it took us a long time to find out what was happening.”
Shanelle says he has always been an excellent worker. “He is very obliging, any additional hours that he can do he will do. He’s a great employee, very obliging to the company, if someone was out sick he’d change his days off, he’ll make himself available at the last minute. He’s an exceptional member of staff.”
James says he has made great efforts to get new accommodation, but with a major shortage of housing has had no luck.
While he has largely kept the reality of his homelessness to himself to date, he has now spoken publicly about it in the hopes that could make some difference. “This is my last hope, my last hope, I have no one to help me.”
He says he has always maintained any home he has had very well and wants another chance to do so again. “Just give me a chance. Me. James McCarthy, on my own.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
