A mother of four who was homeless for 11 months has spoken of her delight at getting a home in time for Christmas.
Ania*, who lives in the Finglas area with her children – aged two, seven, 10 and 14 – said that she had been worried about how to do Christmas for her children while in emergency accommodation.
She said she is thinking of the other families who have not been housed and will spend Christmas in small rooms.
After Ania was served with an eviction notice, which she tried to challenge, she tried looking for new accommodation that would accept the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).
After asking friends, putting posts up on Facebook and applying to online ads, “nothing happened”, she said.
“Per day, you might send four or five (emails) to Daft.ie or to MyHome.ie. They don’t answer and you lose hope,” she told the PA news agency on condition of anonymity.
She said she ended up overholding the property and had to appear in court.
“I asked the judge, can I stay for Christmas and then I can move somewhere, and he gave me three months to leave.”
In January, she packed a small box of things, paying for the rest to be put in storage, before moving into Sunnybank Hotel.
“When I first moved over there, me and my oldest child, we just came to check it and we looked and said ‘Oh my gosh’ and she just sat on her bed and she just started crying. And I cried with her. She said ‘I don’t want this mommy’.”
She said her children could not have friends over to visit and they felt separate to other children.
“They feel ‘I’m homeless’ and just separate from other kids with a normal home.
“When they came home they would just sit on their beds, that’s all. There was no fun like before when we were singing songs, dancing, or making art together and making cookies.”
There was a communal playroom that her youngest child used but it was “not like home”. She said her older children would use it to do homework because there was no table or desk in their room.
“There was a kitchen where I could cook, but I only had one and a half hours to prepare, cook and then clean. Then you put on the list what time you start cooking and what time you finish.”
Her daughter is diabetic, which proved challenging because when they didn’t have access to the kitchen, they would eat snacks in their room.
Celebrating birthdays was also difficult.
“For my 10-year-old daughter, we brought her to Jump Zone and she invited five friends. I offered, of course, to pay for them but it was a lot of money. But what can you do? So for one and a half hours, we went to Jump Zone.
“For my little daughter’s birthday, who is seven, we just went to McDonald’s.”
She said she had been worried about how Christmas would go and couldn’t watch festive movies or look at social media posts about the season.
“There was no room for a Christmas tree. Where would I hide Christmas presents? What do we eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? That was tough. How do I explain to my kids that we need to stay in that room?
“I feel sorry for families who stay in Sunnybank, because there are some big families like me, with four kids, they have stayed three years there. Another family, a mommy with three kids, she has stayed two and a half years, there are many families like me, stay in one room and wait three years there.
“You feel like you can’t breathe there, you feel like you’re in a cage.
“You feel forgotten by everybody, you feel no hope. It’s very hard. Your mental health is going down. You’re surviving, that’s all.”
Now, Ania and her children are in a house, a temporary accommodation before they move into a permanent home provided by Dublin City Council.
“I have a kitchen!” she said. “So we put a Christmas tree and lots of decorations up. I’ve already bought them Christmas presents. We put on Christmas songs in the morning before school and afterwards, we watch Christmas movies.
“I’m so happy to be here, I’m so lucky to be here because so many families don’t have (that) luck.”
– Ania is a name given to the woman to protect her and her children’s identity.