Kildare councillor sleeps rough to highlight homelessness crisis

This year’s Housing Action Kildare (HAK) sleep out fundraiser for Focus Ireland took place in people’s gardens instead of its usual Newbridge Town Hall location.

As of last week, the group had raised €975.30.

For those who want to contribute the fund has not closed.

The seven strong group which undertook the sleep out included Kildare County Council member, Social Democrat Cllr Chris Pender. The group met briefly at the Town Hall at 7pm on Friday, October 16, to launch the event before heading to camp out in their gardens to highlight the problem of homelessness.

Cllr Pender, a member of HAK, is not new to sleeping out. In 2014, due to a a personal situation, he found himself homeless and slept rough.

Because of Covid-19, the group selected their own locations for their sleep out. They included sleeping on couches, in a garage, in back yard and and out in the open. “It reflects a variety of situations people find themselves in,” said Cllr Pender. In his own case, he slept on a park bench near the town hall last Friday. “It was not pleasant,” he said.

As with many who sleep out of doors in public places, he did not get to sleep until about 1am when the streets become quieter.

It was not warm. “I made the mistake of leaving my thumb exponsed outside fo the sleeping bag. The next day it took hours, literally hours, to get warm.”

These days Cllr Pender works with a number of people in Newbridge who are homeless. “They are a community and they look after each other,” he said.

Why do some people become homeless? “There are a mutiple of reasons,” he said. One of the people whose cases he encountered slept in a car. He had got Covid and fell out with his girlfriend and she did not want him living in the house.

Another could not afford rent because the the Pandemic Unemployment Payment was too low. He was staying in an unregistered tenancy which is not registered with the Tenancies Bord.

Cllr Pender spoke of people being let out of hospital and being released from prison with nowhere to go. “Homelessness can touch any of us,” he said.

Cllr Pender said that Covid-19 has highlighted the difficulty of homeless people being transported between counties. “I know they say that nationally they have a policy but there is no holistic approach.”

There were homeless people being transported between Kildare and Dublin when Kildare was in lockdown and Dublin was not. “There are gaps in the system, nationally. There is no wrap around,” he said.

Cllr Pender said they should have a situation where homeless people will stay in their own county. “We must have the services in place.”

He says that while addiction is an issue for some who experience homelessness, there are other issues as well.

According to spokesperson Liz Kavanagh Wilders, this was the fourth year in a row for Housing Action Kildare members to sleep out for Focus Ireland #ShineALightNight on homelessness in Ireland.

“There are many types of homelessness — those who have to sleep on the street, those sleeping in cars, those sleeping on a friend or family member’s couch or floor, or those having to share a room with strangers. Others live with the worry about not being able to pay for their accommodation or it being sold by their landlord."