Homeless mother stays in tent outside Carlow council offices

A homeless single mother has been sleeping in a tent outside the Carlow county council offices since Monday night after the local authority stopped paying for her emergency accommodation.

Karen Middleton (26) and her son Luke (6) had been living in a B&B room in Carlow town for the past five weeks. In a recent meeting with Carlow housing officials the council outlined to Ms Middleton that they would not be paying for her emergency accommodation after Monday, June 12th.

Seamus O’Connor, director of services at Carlow county council said Ms Middleton was told “she would have to depend on her family network, if she was not able to source a rented property” after June 12th.

Mr O’Connor said rooms in hotels or B&Bs were “reserved in County Carlow for those in emergency situations”.

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Ms Middleton was living in Dublin last year until a breakdown in a relationship meant she had to move back to Carlow town, where she grew up. She said initially she and her son Luke “were sleeping on floors and couches of friends and family” before she was then placed in emergency accommodation by Carlow County Council.

Before moving to Dublin, she lived in a rented property in Carlow on the housing assistance payment (HAP) scheme. But she has failed to find a landlord who will accept a tenant on the council assisted HAP scheme since moving home.

Earlier this year she spent one night in a women’s refuge in Wexford, but the centre only offers long term lodging to women based in Wexford county. There is no women’s refuge in Carlow, and the only local authority funded homeless accommodation in the county is a 16-bed shelter for men.

‘A roof over my head’

Ms Middleton said she would continue to sleep outside of the Carlow county council offices until the issue was resolved. “They don’t seem to have any interest. At the minute the answer is just ‘go away’. I’m willing to take anything at this stage, just a roof over my head,” she said.

Mr O’Connor said the council was aware of 100 people on the social housing list living involuntarily with family relatives. He said the council regarded that solution as appropriate for Ms Middleton.

“It would be much more effective, where appropriate, to support these home-based families financially and socially, saving homeless hotel bills and costly care support” he said.

Ms Middleton said she hadn’t lived in her family home for the last seven years. “They can’t take me in as they don’t have the room. Other relatives have their own kids. It’s not their responsibility to take me in, it’s the council’s duty of care,” she said.

Mike Allen, advocacy director at Focus Ireland, which runs homelessness support services, said local authorities outside of Dublinwere seeing increasing numbers of families presenting as homeless.

“Many local authorities are much less prepared for this than the four Dublin authorities were, and many seem to be forced to invent responses as they go along,” he said.

“Families are provided with hotel accommodation but with arbitrary timescales, often of a week, in which the family are expected to resolve their problem. When they can’t resolve the problem they are left with nowhere to stay.”