Homeless man picks up a tent and says service is vital in community
By Aideen O'Flaherty
AMONG the people who went to the food table on Monday night was local man Jonathan, who has been homeless for over two years and said the volunteers are providing a “vital” service.
“The service is brilliant here tonight,” he told The Echo. “It’s better than the one I use in town.
People receiving food at the table on Monday evening
“I heard about it from a homeless fella in the village. He told me about it, and I got a tent and all from the girls here today.
“The service is vital. If we didn’t have the homeless services here, then what would we have?
“Homeless people have nothing at all. Begging outside shops, we’re getting looked down on as dirt.
“Some people have a heart, and some people don’t, but a service like this has a heart.”
One of the Sharing is Caring volunteers, Stephen, said he had experienced homelessness and addiction issues in the past, and had previously helped out at soup runs in town and wanted to get involved in the Sharing is Caring food table as it’s in his local area and he is now back on his feet.
“I just saw [a post about the food table] on Facebook last week and just texted them and asked them if they needed a dig out, because I had helped out with one or two of the services in town before, but I’m from Tallaght so I just thought I’d give a dig out up here instead,” he explained.
“Over the last few years, I’ve noticed there’s a lot more homeless people sitting around Tallaght, especially outside the shops and up around The Square, and they don’t really have anywhere.
“And there’s a lot of people living in the hotels that are in supported accommodation, but they can only sleep in there, there’s no kitchens in the hotel rooms so they need to be fed.
“So it’s a good cause, and I’d rather help out in my own area.”
Stephen added that he had been homeless when he was younger and struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, but he went into a residential treatment programme in 2018 and said it was “the best thing I’ve ever done”.
“I’ve been clean since I went there,” he said. “I went into recovery houses after that and a year ago I got my own apartment, and it’s the first time in my life where I’ve actually been independent.
“It’s just because I made the decision to go [into treatment]. It was a big thing for me to do that and I was full of fear doing it, but I don’t regret it at all now.”
When asked about what the homelessness situation is like in Tallaght now compared to when he was homeless, Stephen said: “It’s totally different now. There’s just more people roaming the streets now than there ever was.”
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