A homeless couple have spoken of the struggles of life on the streets.
Wesley Condon, 42, and 28-year-old Sintija Klava are living at Mount Brown Hostel in Dublin but previously camped out in a tent for two years.
They said rampant drug use and lack of couples’ beds in some temporary shelters forced them to sleep rough on Parnell Street, which left them vulnerable to attack, theft and illness.
Mr Condon said: “We’ve been homeless for four years now.
“We were in a tent for two years, that was really bad. We’re in Mount Brown Hostel now, it’s much better.
“In the tent you never felt safe, you’d come back some nights and the tent would be wrecked so we’d carry all our stuff around, about eight bags each, walking from place to place trying to find somewhere.”
He added: “Most hostels are quite rough, some of them don’t even have doors on them, you’re separated by a curtain and we never went because they’d split men and women up.
“There’s people robbing each other and taking drugs, threatening each other, it’s not where you want to be.
The couple have been on housing waiting lists for four years and believe it will be another five years before they are allocated a home. Ms Klava also told of the dangers of living in hostels.
She said: “They’re rough, you don’t feel safe, when I went into one on my own I had my phone stolen so we didn’t want to be split up again.”
Her fiance added their new hostel is better and they have their own room but the homeless crisis does not appear to be getting better.
He said: “We know loads of people still in tents, it’s the age that shocks me, it’s people who are 19, 20.
“The Government wonders why these people are going into drugs, they don’t start out on drugs, it’s when they’re sleeping in a tent, they get into the cycle, that’s how it starts.”
