This article is from page 10 of the 2013-03-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
THE NUMBER of homeless people in Clare has skyrocketed over the last 12 months with local agencies reporting scores or families going hungry in the county each week.
A total of 304 homeless people presented in Clare last year, an increase of more than 23 per cent on the 2011 figure. That is according to the draft report of the Mid West Regional Action Plan, which is due to be published later this week. The report also reveals that 17 Clare people identified themselves as being homeless to Limerick City Council, 14 to Limerick County Council at 2 to North Tipperary County Council.
Domestic violence was the main cause of homeless in Clare last year with 83 people made homeless because of an unsafe home environment. Nearly 200 of the people were aged between 20 and 40 years of age but 10 Clare people in their 60s were made homeless last year as-well-as 19 teenagers.
Josie O’Brien of the HELP homeless organisation in Ennis has seen a large increase in the number of people going without food in Clare over the last 12 months.
She is currently providing food each week for two familes in the Ennis area, including a seven month old baby and a newborn infant.
“HELP has been feeding a little baby and his mother since October. Over the past few weeks I have also been bringing food to another Ennis based family with four children, including a newborn infant,” she said.
“The people of Clare have been so generous. I put a request for food up on our facebook page and invariable someone always comes up with the goods. They are in a desperate situation, I went out to them [the family with four children] yesterday and they had nothing in the fridge but butter. We went out with a load of food that a woman in Miltown donated but other than that they had nothing.”
According to Orla Ní Eile, of the Clare Immigrant Support Centre, legal and illegal immigrant in Clare and their Irish-born children are currently falling through the cracks and not receiving any support from the authorities.
“People are going hungry in Clare each week. It is sad to say it but it is the truth,” she said.
“A lot of these people are returning Irish nationals or foreign workers, who were working legally in Clare but they discover, when they lose their job, that their employer has not been paying tax for them.
“Without a record or paying tax it is almost impossible for them to get any assistance from the state.
“There are dozen of families going without basic food in Clare each week and the situation is getting worse.”
For more information on HELP, search for ‘help the homeless in Clare’ on Facebook.