Local Faces: Linda Maritza

TWICE a week, Sharing is Caring runs a food station in Tallaght but the service that the group provides goes much deeper than that.

The brainchild of Linda Maritza and her husband Mark, Sharing is Caring is a homeless outreach and assist service based in the Dublin 24 area.

“Getting to even know some of the people in the [homeless] hub, families are fighting to get a house,” Linda explains, when talking to The Echo.

“We have one girl in the hub who has seven children and she’s there three-years. Her last baby is only six-months-old.

“It’s actually horrible to see what they’re experiencing.

“You look at the prices of houses, who can afford them anyway?

“They put drink prices up, there’s a lot of addiction there also.

“If you have an alcoholic mother or father, they’re going to get their drink regardless and who goes hungry then? The child actually does.

“They didn’t fully think it through, they could have looked at the price of rent or something.

“This government is a joke when it comes to homelessness.

Linda Maritza

“When you look around, the amount of houses boarded up, it’s disgusting.

“We have tents with us every night and we’ve given them to couples. We’ve actually put a girl into a tent who is pregnant.”

Fully engaged in the throws of the homeless crises, Linda and her team work tirelessly to provide some sort of stable footing for people experiencing homelessness.

The drive to help started seven-years-ago, when she was leaving her local shop.

“About seven years ago, I met a man at our local shops here in Aylesbury,” the mother-of-three details.

“Instead of offering money – I’ve children here myself – I said that I was cooking a stew if he wanted some.

“Everyday driving up and down to the shop for bread or milk, I just gave him a dinner off myself. That was genuinely it.

“Then one Christmas, my family and I decided that we wouldn’t do Kris Kindle, we’d try put him up in a hotel.

“Our community got behind us and he actually ended up getting two-weeks in a hotel.

“After that, he told people what we done, passed out my number and it sort of became a little job where people would ring asking me for a hand with something.

Linda and Mark have helped many people for years but they have noticed that there has been an influx in peope needing a hand since the onset of the pandemic

“There was other groups around the place and if they needed stuff, I’d be that person that they’d come to and I’d say ‘right I’ll go to the local SuperValu and put in an appeal for sleeping bags’.

“At the very beginning, it started off with just one man and I’ve known him for many years, he still comes to me and thankfully he has been housed since.

“We were able to make calls to the local HSE and stuff, so people weren’t being left behind in the community.

“It’s all well and good helping people but if they’re not noticed, they’re forgotten about.

“So once you get the Simon Community involved, that’s head counts of whose actually on the streets, check ups can be done.

“That’s when we decided that instead of constantly waiting to get a call, we said we’d set up Sharing is Caring, Dublin 24.”

On April 8, 2021, Sharing is Caring was born with Linda cooking several meals for people who may be experiencing homelessness or are living on the margins.

With the pathway between McDonald’s and Tallaght Garda Station acting as its base every Monday and Wednesday, the volunteers at Sharing is Caring serve hot meals to people.

What started off as just 10 people coming to the table seeking some assistance has grown into Linda cooking 140 meals a week for the 40-50 people who come over each night.

Supported by a team of 10-12 volunteers, Sharing is Caring is quickly establishing itself as a key homeless outreach service in the community through it’s visibility.

Linda Maritza

Since situating itself in the pathway between The Square and the Abberley, McDonald’s nearby has begun to contribute to the Monday night dinners while Wednesday’s are donut nights, with Off Beat supplying the treats.

Linda credits her unwavering desire to help people to her parents Eileen and Michael Shortt.

When asked about the spelling of her maiden name, Linda laughs and says “oh yeah we’re a long Shortt, the two Ts”.

Born and reared in Bawnville Drive, Linda is the youngest of the three Shortt children and she went to St Dominic’s National School before attending Old Bawn Community School.

After Old Bawn, Linda graduated from Crumlin College as a chef and later ran a salon, which was forced to close during the economic downturn.

While volunteering can be incredibly emotional and physically taxing, if it is engrained into you from a young age, it can become as natural of an instinct as breathing or blinking.

“I get inspiration from my mother and father,” Linda says.

“My mother will be 80 next May and I’d say she’s one of the best neighbours, she looks out after everyone, does everyones shopping and she’s riddled with arthritis.

“She’s a little warrior and it keeps her going, I’d say that’s where I get my drive from.

“The both of them, my mam and dad, would be well known around, they call them the

‘sweethearts of Tallaght’ because they still walk hand-in-hand together.

“But genuinely, they are real community people and that’s where I get it from.”

While Linda and her husband Mark have helped people for several years, since the onset of the pandemic, they have noticed an influx in the number of people seeking a hand.

“We found this year, it’s very sad, there was an awful lot of people who just couldn’t afford to eat,” Linda, who is a grandmother of four, says.

“People who maybe lost their jobs through Covid, we had OAPs who lost their partners through Covid and just wanted to come down for the chat.

“To think we have older people coming down who just can’t afford to eat, that’s scary.

“We’ve gotten to know them, all by name, ’cause a few of them would come down regularly, but one of them went missing for a few weeks there and I started to worry about them.

“Then, this particular lady finally came down and she just told us that she was afraid to come out because of the Covid.

“She’d always get three dinners going home, she’d be in her late-70s and she can microwave them then for the week and I have to say, she’d be delighted heading off.”

The extent of how much Sharing is Caring Dublin 24 can offer seems endless with the strength and drive of a woman like Linda Maritza at the helm.

However, there is still what seems to be an endless rising tide of people experiencing homelessness in Ireland.

As of September 2021, there is still 8,475 individuals currently in homelessness in Ireland – a year-on-year decrease of 181.

When the numbers are so high, it can be difficult to visualise just how many people are living rough.

For Linda, she can put a face to the statistics as she gets through a mountain of work every week trying to plug the holes in the system that has forced people into homelessness.

The enormity of those efforts can not be underestimated, with thousands of people relying on groups such as Sharing is Caring for basic needs such as food and shelter every single week across the country.

Visit Sharing is Caring, Dublin 24 on Facebook to keep up to date with the group and to reach out for help or to offer support.