That’s Men: It takes a lot of strength to survive homelessness

If you wanted to find a crucible in which to grind down the mental health of men, women and especially children, homelessness would do the job just fine.

I probably don't have to argue here that to be homeless is to be in a state of exceptional stress. But the relationship between stress and mental and physical health is often not understood as well as it might be.

We all know that stress is bad for physical health but it's important to understand, as the number of homeless families grows, that extreme and prolonged stress can trigger many mental and physical conditions in children, young people and adults.

For instance, many of us have a predisposition to depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or anxiety. That doesn’t mean that we will actually suffer from these conditions. For that to happen, a trigger is needed – and that trigger can often be extreme stress.

If you were born with a genetic predisposition to one of these conditions, then prolonged stress can flip the switch and turn it on. And once the condition is activated, the switch can stay in the “on” position for a long time.

Children who spend long enough in these conditions to have their mental health damaged in this way are likely to do badly at school because of their living conditions. That, in turn, limits their future ability to buy good therapeutic services. Meanwhile, the public mental health services are overstretched and underfunded.

Adults, too, can break under the extreme stress of homelessness. Human beings are programmed to try to exercise control over their environment. Living in a hotel room allows for very little control over environment. And that’s without even considering the danger, if you’re in Dublin, that the City Council’s credit card will max out, with you and your family ending up back on the streets. Sleeping on other people’s floors, or in cars also allows little scope for exercising control or choice.

"A survey of 20 homeless families living in emergency accommodation, found that the parents reported difficulty keeping children quiet in a confined space, felt that there was increased conflict between the children, and felt a sense of loss of dignity and respect," according to a report on the Focus Ireland website.

If you are trying to raise a family in conditions of homelessness or near homelessness, you need all of your strengths and survival skills in good working order. Yet that is the very time when, as I have pointed out earlier, your living conditions may wreck your emotional and mental health to the degree that you lose those strengths and survival skills.

On the physical side, respiratory problems seem to be particularly prevalent among homeless children, possibly because of living in damp and otherwise poor conditions.

As I write this I can’t help noting that a lot of the information in this article has been around for decades. Why does it, or other articles like it, have to be written at all?

What is lacking in our political masters and mistresses that they have allowed all of this to happen with their eyes wide open?

Back in 2003, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, was defending the implementation of the “rent cap” which means that families depending on state assistance must move out of their private rented accommodation if the rent exceeds a certain relatively low figure. In effect, many families are one rent increase away from homelessness. The policy was continued by Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton.

Bodies such as Simon, Threshold and Focus Ireland and people like Fr Peter McVerry have pointed out time and again to ministers that these policies send families onto the streets, into hotel rooms or onto other people's floors.

And they have pointed out all the life-wrecking consequences people face when they are thrown into that crucible. But they are voices in the wilderness and so are the families whose case they try to plead but to whom nobody really wants to listen.

Padraig O’Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness for Worriers. His daily mindfulness reminder is free by email.