‘Worn out’ homeless family of nine sues county council

A homeless family of nine has taken legal action to have their accommodation needs urgently addressed.

The mother said she, her husband and children aged from one to 16 years, were “totally exhausted, upset and worn out from all the struggle”.

“We cry every day and are losing all hope,” she said.

The court heard the parents sometimes sleep in their car after splitting up their seven children to stay from night to night with different relatives.

The family say they were resident in a halting site for several years until last July when they came under an attack which made it unsafe to remain there.

In court documents, the mother said the entire family had been suffering since becoming homeless last July but that South Dublin County Council had failed to take meaningful steps to address their situation.

The council had told them to “self-accommodate”, meaning they must find accommodation which the local authority then pays for, she alleged.

While they have identified a four-bed house for rent at €2,600 a month near the children’s schools, plus another house in the same area for €1,900 a month, the council had said it would not fund these.

Surrender tenancy

The council had repeatedly asked them to surrender their tenancy at the halting site but that required them to confirm they now had alternative accommodation when they did not and so it would be untruthful to sign that, the mother said. They had to give up the tenancy through no fault of their own and due to being “the victims of crime”.

The family’s solicitor, Rebecca Keating, pointed to research by housing academic Lorcan Sirr which says three months’ hotel accommodation in two family rooms costs about €20,000 while letting a house at €2,600 a month for three months, plus management and letting agency costs, costs some €10,300.

The mother said, while they were entitled to €1,600 monthly under the Housing Accommodation Programme to get private rented accommodation, the rent for a property in the Dublin area that could accommodate them was generally between €2,900 and €4,000. She previously viewed about 40 properties and was offered none of them.

It is claimed the family “quite reasonably” previously declined as unsuitable two offers of short-term accommodation, including one in a premises housing adults with addiction difficulties. The longest period of hotel accommodation they had received was three months and that too was unsuitable.

‘Haphazard’

The mother said, due to being a family of nine and being Travellers, they experienced difficulties getting hotel accommodation and even when they could, the “haphazard and chaotic” nature of the bookings and distances they had to travel were “extremely disruptive”. This has upset the children, affected their schooling and limited the ability to provide them with nutritious meals.

The youngest children had missed about 80 per cent of school since September and one of her sons was a promising sportsman whose training had been seriously adversely affected, she said. She and her husband are very stressed and she has been diagnosed with depression.

In judicial review proceedings against the council, the family, who cannot be identified, want declarations that the council has breached its statutory obligations under the Housing Acts and failed to vindicate their fundamental rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003.

A provisional hearing date has been fixed for June 21st.