"The kids found it especially hard. My daughter cried every night saying she wanted to go home."
Our lives have been changed by the pandemic, that's an indisputable fact. Everything we took for granted has gone. Socialising with friends, meeting with family, travel, sport, eating out... the list goes on.
It's been a very tough time, but at least so many of us had a roof over our head, a place to call home. The restrictions forced us to stay at home, in our own homes, in the comfort of our own homes.
For some people though, they never had that option. To stay at home, at their own home, would have been like a dream, and not the nightmare reality they found themselves in.
For Clare and her family, this was especially hard on the kids.
“A few months ago, I was homeless with my partner and two children, living in one room in emergency accommodation. We were there for nearly fourteen months.
I never thought I’d ever be homeless. And then one day our landlord said he was selling our house. That was it. We had been there for eight years. I felt like the rug was just pulled from underneath our feet.
We had one room for the four of us. It’s hard to describe how tough it was, all of us in one room.
The kids found it especially hard. My daughter cried every night saying she wanted to go home.
When we left our home, we had to leave most of our things behind. All our furniture and most of the kid’s toys. Grace, my youngest was the most upset by this because she had to leave behind a doll’s house she had gotten for Christmas.
I don’t know what we would have done without Sean, our Family Support Worker, and the guys in Focus Ireland.
Sean helped link us up with the City Council to navigate the housing application process, which can be incredibly complicated. They also helped bring a bit of normality into our lives by helping us bring the kids on a trip to the zoo and invited them to their special summer camps.
Then one day Sean called to say he had found a place for us, I couldn’t believe it.
We’re here five weeks now. It feels like 5 months. I almost can’t believe it.
One of the first things I did was get Grace a new doll’s house. It wasn’t quite the same as the old one. But to Grace it was perfect."
Clare and her family were homeless for over a year, thanks to the help of Focus Ireland and our wonderful supporters, her family has been moved into a safe and secure home of their own. Please, if you can, donate today to help more families like Clare’s.
Help them by making a donation and making a difference.
For more information, check out the Focus Ireland website.
You can also take a look at the brand new ad which highlights an Irish family in this heartbreaking situation...
Clip via FocusIreland
Focus Ireland believe that every child has a right to a place they can call home and are driven by the fundamental belief that homelessness is wrong.
