Helping the homeless at Christmas

I have always loved Christmas.

How could I not? It is one of the only occasions where clichés become endearing and not cheesy.

Picking out the perfect tree with your family; making the annual trip to the attic to uncover the dusty Christmas decorations, and wearing down your shoe leather as you scour the city searching for presents that will make your loved ones brim with happiness.

Out come the reliable Christmas films ranging from Star Wars to Miracle on 34th Street and the beloved Christmas carols. Christmas has a way of summoning forth childhood memories like no other occasion. And it is also the time where families seem to work together in perfect unison. Grudges are cast aside and strangers smile at strangers in the streets.

Faces are aglow. Friends and family are reunited. There are talks of Santa. Snuggling near the fire; sipping mulled wine or hot coco. Every family has its tradition. Even the cynically minded cannot deny, there is a sense of magic and harmony in the air.

This is the infectious warm glow of Christmas.

Like clockwork the minute the Halloween masks disappear from the shop windows, the Christmas mania (Nov 1st –Dec 25th) takes over.

In what seems the blink of an eye, lights are being lit in Grafton St, the trees go up and the silky smooth tones of the masterful Nat King Cole can be heard everywhere making us crave chestnuts.

People come close to battle to capture the perfect present or ideal tree. The turkey, the sacrificial lamb of the holiday, takes centre stage and is auctioned off at ridiculous prices.

Children drive their parents mad begging them for countless toys they probably will enjoy for five minutes before discarding them like last year’s Christmas tree.

It is all about excess and extravaganza.

But we all love it because for once we can spoil ourselves and others without feeling guilty. Even the usually frugal minded roll their eyes to the heavens and repeat that old adage ‘sure it’s Christmas’. This simple sentence is your get out of jail free card to ‘go to town’ with your credit card.

Everybody strives to make their Christmas as beautiful and magical as possible. And they are beautiful and magical, but not for everyone.

There are some for whom Christmas is just another day of struggling to survive.

As we buzz around in our contented Christmas bubbles, we abandon them to their suffering.  Shoppers brush past their lonely silhouettes as they run from shop to shop and from atm to atm. Few acknowledge their presence. While even fewer stop to talk to them or help them. Many people find it easier to ignore them than to let feelings of guilt cast a damper on all that Christmas sparkle and joy.

The great simplicities we take for granted like having a family to go home to are the luxuries the homeless can only dream of. For them there will be no Christmas trees, presents, no dreams of Santa and in many cases no Christmas dinner.

In the great wave of commercialism that is Christmas, the vulnerable in society are left to their daily struggle for survival.

I am not saying that I don’t want people to enjoy their Christmas and that like the Grinch I want them to feel guilty over the money they spend.

For whatever reason, more than any year I am just staggered by the great divide between the homeless and those of us fortunate enough to have a roof over our heads.

Christmas has a way of making us look at everything through a prism of reflection for better or worse and I found myself obsessing about how the homeless can survive around this time of year.

Homelessness is a fact of life every day of the year, but it is the plummeting temperatures of Christmas that make the issue so urgent. For the past two months, every time I passed a person sleeping rough on the streets I would physically shudder at the impossibility of their situation. Every time I asked myself, how can this be their life? How is something so barbaric happening in this day and age? How is this happening in Ireland? How do they survive the night? Will they be the next Jonathan Corrie and succumb to the harsh elements of an Irish winter?

It is an issue that has gotten out of control and despite Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s assertions that “there should be no homeless people sleeping rough in the capital this Christmas” Any person who walks down Grafton Street today, will see that this is not the case.

On every corner of the main commercial streets, you will find a homeless person roughing it.

The Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly recently said on RTE “that tonight in Dublin there are 4,600 beds available and being used by people who find themselves homeless. There are beds available for every single person in Dublin if they want a bed tonight.” Last night as I passed Grafton St on my way home for Christmas Eve mass and dinner with my family, I saw many homeless people in the process of building their cardboard fortresses for the night.

It was a scene plucked straight from a Dickens novel. One of them was even reading A Christmas Carol. With all due respect to the Minister where are the beds for these people? Surely they would rather a bed than the relentless cold of a granite archway? Despite the good intentions, it is just not enough!

I recently attended a vigil to honour the one year anniversary of Jonathan Corrie’s tragic death. Father Peter McVerry was in attendance and described the problem as having “spiralled out of control.” He said that since Jonathan died, 550 individuals are accessing Emergency accommodation and 73 families a month are becoming homeless.

One would think in light of Jonathan’s tragic death, circumstances would have improved. Sadly, it has gotten worse. Much worse!

With 2016 almost upon us, the future of the homeless remains uncertain.

The Government has been hinting that by 2016 they hope to see homelessness completely eradicated. Unless, the Government are basing this on a Disney film, I can’t see this happening. The only thing that appears certain is that homelessness is not going anywhere and like Fr McVerry said, the government’s future coalition plan to end homelessness at this time, looks like an “Alice in Wonderland Fantasy.”

However, just because the problem doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, does not mean that it is ok for people to sit on their thumbs and do nothing.

With this in mind, I have been on the streets this last month asking the homeless what could be done to make their Christmas better. They all had the same response: someone to talk to and be their friend. The sheer human act of talking to these people and letting them be heard means the world to them.

What must it be like for them to see us doing our shopping and running home to snuggle up with our families beside the fire? One homeless woman eloquently said it was like watching a play, something you could almost touch but you were never going to be a part of.

This is the height of injustice. This is not a school yard where some kids are told they cannot play. The last time I checked, Ireland boasted itself as being a country that respected equality. How is this equality? It is not ok for some to have Christmas and for others to be cast aside.

A new charity group I happened upon called Hope in the Darkness, shares my philosophy and like so many other charities, is doing its utmost to bring Christmas to the homeless of Dublin this year. They make the journey from Gorey in Co. Wexford to bring food to the homeless at the GPO. Come rain or snow they are to be found at the GPO from 8-11 every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday night.

One of the group leaders Eileen says their manifesto is that even though the homeless cannot have Christmas from the warmth of their own homes, they can still have a decent Christmas dinner: “We at Hope In The Darkness believe that even if you don’t have a home for Christmas you should still get a Christmas dinner. So for our first Christmas at the GPO, we are going to endeavour to bring Christmas to the homeless.”

True, the group like all other groups trying to help the homeless are but a mere band aid trying to heal an indomitable crisis. But the little they do does go a long way and it is steps like this that have to be taken before we can attempt to make a dent in the huge crisis that is homelessness.

That is why this year, instead of succumbing to food coma and curling up on the couch to watch the Christmas classics, I will join Hope in the Darkness and share my Christmas dinner with the homeless at the GPO at 6pm on Christmas Day. The immensity of the issue makes you feel useless and you ask yourself the inevitable question ‘well how am I supposed to help’. I know that by going to the GPO, I am not going to cure homelessness. But as naïve as it may sound, I feel that if I can help at least one person by being there and listening  to them, then I have done something worthwhile this year for Christmas. And like the great Charles Dickens says: “No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burdens of another.”