REVEALED: How the other half lives in Dublin in 2016

This is the reality of life in Dublin in 2016 for some of our citizens.

In a damning indictment of the city’s failed homelessness policies, an elderly man and his partner are forced to live in Dickensian conditions in the remains of a battered tent near one of the city’s grandest parks.

And this is no temporary solution to the situation they have found themselves in.

Shockingly, Joe (62) and Sabrina (38) have been living here, under canvass and bits of plastic, in an unkempt field near the Phoenix Park, for over a year!

One whole year. That’s 12 months of rain, hail, sleet, snow, storms, and louts that have attacked them; all the while living in constant fear for their health, their safety and their sanity.

Remember each of the storms that came crashing through over the last few weeks? Joe and Sabrina were here, huddled together under bits of canvass and a plastic sheet they found on a building site, which is all that keeps the rain out.

Remember Christmas? They were here then also, in the same place, surrounded by rubbish and the embers of a fire, eating rashers and sausages that they had saved up for their Christmas dinner.

Both Joe and Sabrina, who are originally from Ballyfermot, believe they have no other choice but to live like this.

“The homeless hostels are dangerous, dirty places,” Joe told Southside People as we sat down with them on a bitterly cold morning last week.

“In one of them a lad was shooting up drugs beside me,” he recalled. “In another I was woken up with a bang on the head because they said I was snoring. I was too afraid to stay there. I couldn’t stay there.”

As Joe spoke, Sabrina just nodded in agreement.

It wasn’t always like this.

Disturbingly – and this is a real indicator of how precarious some people’s position is – three years ago they were just another couple struggling to get by, like many others, but at least they lived indoors.

They claim that, suddenly and without warning, they were given 28 days’ notice by their landlord to quit their North Circular Road flat.

Reliant on social welfare payments to keep a roof over their heads, they wandered for days trying to find an alterative address but returned one night to find that the landlord had locked them out.

“And that was it,” Sabina said sadly. “We lost everything, including our deposit and everything we owned.”

They then embarked on the long process of trying to get help from the council’s homeless services. They were eventually told they would be put on a waiting list and would be contacted when a place became available.

Then Sabrina’s phone was stolen when she was attacked as she begged on the street.

As their situation deteriorated they were forced to move from hostel to hostel before they settled on living in a tent in the Phoenix Park. There they slept under canvass until they were forced to move by park rangers. Then they were attacked by a gang that jumped on their tent and thrashed it, so they left in  fear they would end up dead, like homeless man Gerard Donnelly, who died in the park in 2013, aged just 29, after he was set on fire.

They still receive welfare payments through jobseekers’ allowance, while Sabrina is on disability allowance. But they acknowledge that their chances of finding alternative accommodation are slipping through their fingers.

So they have settled, for want of a better word, in this scrap of derelict field just beside a main road.

It is a secluded spot, difficult to see from the road and isn’t the worst location for what passes as a home, compared to some of the sites we visited last week.

In just a few hours over one morning, photographer Darren Kinsella and I saw the sad remains left behind by other homeless people who had taken to lying in the city’s forgotten corners.

We found the destroyed detritus of broken tents and sodden sleeping bags scattered on rough ground across the Phoenix Park and on the streets around it.

And on the same day that we saw the plight of the homeless for ourselves, the Irish Mirror  highlighted the story of another  man who fears for his life as he sleeps within the park close to Áras an Uachtaráin.

At another bleak location we came across more evidence of the desperation of some of those seeking shelter from the worst the winter has thrown at them.

In between two busy roads, where noisy traffic rumbled past in both directions, we came across another lonely tent set up among the sparse trees.

There was nobody at home when we called but just glancing at their pitiful belongings told us all we needed to know about this person’s plight. The entrance to the tent was open to the sky and the sleeping bag lying within was filthy and sodden. A few personal possessions in a plastic bag were all that they had in terms of home comforts.

In comparison, Joe and Sabrina are living like kings. But it is still awful. Only for that black sheeting tied to the surrounding trees they would be fully exposed to the elements. Rubbish and empty beer cans are strewn everywhere around the blackened remains of a fire. 

Their toothbrushes and sanitary products are wrapped in a plastic bag. The stench of mould coming from the inside of the tent is overwhelming.

They stumble out to have their picture taken and, touchingly, Sabrina puts her arm around Joe. As I watch them together, I have absolutely no doubt that this gesture is the only comfort he will feel today.