Another well overdue post....
So there I am after a leisurely day in town and a cinema date with friends and I meet Shelly(*not her real name) on O'Connell bridge. A sweet little slip of a thing with her back to the wall and cowering from the driving rain in her sleeping bag. I stoppped and asked her if she would like a cup of something hot to drink given the night that was in it and she assured me she was fine, she didn't really drink tea or coffee and anyway, she'd just gotten soup and sandwiches off the Simon Community who had passed by. She told me she was 3 months pregnant and the only thing she was eating at the moment was Cadbury "Flake"bars and drinking Capri-Suns.... I asked her if she wanted to get out of the rain for a bit and go to a cafe just to get warm but she said she was waiting for her boyfriend (also homeless) to come back from Temple Bar where he too was tapping to get enough money for a hostel that night. They'd met 2 years ago on the streets and neither of them did drugs. Her mother was a heroin addict and was dead and Shelly herself had been on the streets since the age of six. I asked her how much it was for the hostel and she told me 8 euros which didnt seem like an awful lot to me but on such a wet night, people were just hurrying home to their nice warm houses and it seemed unlikely that many would stop. Susie told me herself that her boyfriend had more luck "tapping" for some reason. He wasn't embarrassed to ask people for money but she was. I asked her if she'd slept out much and she told me she had but that herself and her boyfriend were trying to get into a "permanent" hostel ("permanent" being 6 months). She mentioned a place called Beech House (a more long term emergency hostel) which apparently wasn't very nice and said that herself and her boyfriend were trying to find somewhere to rent where a month's deposit wasn't required. She also said that lately it seemed much harder to get a place in a hostel due to the fact that there were now more homeless and more "foreigners". From the way she said this, she didn't seem resentful about it and it didn't seem like she was being xenophobic, she was simply stating a fact.
I gave her a few euros and went on my way to my nice cosy home.
So there I am after a leisurely day in town and a cinema date with friends and I meet Shelly(*not her real name) on O'Connell bridge. A sweet little slip of a thing with her back to the wall and cowering from the driving rain in her sleeping bag. I stoppped and asked her if she would like a cup of something hot to drink given the night that was in it and she assured me she was fine, she didn't really drink tea or coffee and anyway, she'd just gotten soup and sandwiches off the Simon Community who had passed by. She told me she was 3 months pregnant and the only thing she was eating at the moment was Cadbury "Flake"bars and drinking Capri-Suns.... I asked her if she wanted to get out of the rain for a bit and go to a cafe just to get warm but she said she was waiting for her boyfriend (also homeless) to come back from Temple Bar where he too was tapping to get enough money for a hostel that night. They'd met 2 years ago on the streets and neither of them did drugs. Her mother was a heroin addict and was dead and Shelly herself had been on the streets since the age of six. I asked her how much it was for the hostel and she told me 8 euros which didnt seem like an awful lot to me but on such a wet night, people were just hurrying home to their nice warm houses and it seemed unlikely that many would stop. Susie told me herself that her boyfriend had more luck "tapping" for some reason. He wasn't embarrassed to ask people for money but she was. I asked her if she'd slept out much and she told me she had but that herself and her boyfriend were trying to get into a "permanent" hostel ("permanent" being 6 months). She mentioned a place called Beech House (a more long term emergency hostel) which apparently wasn't very nice and said that herself and her boyfriend were trying to find somewhere to rent where a month's deposit wasn't required. She also said that lately it seemed much harder to get a place in a hostel due to the fact that there were now more homeless and more "foreigners". From the way she said this, she didn't seem resentful about it and it didn't seem like she was being xenophobic, she was simply stating a fact.
I gave her a few euros and went on my way to my nice cosy home.
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