The Capuchin Day Centre on Dublin’s Bow Street offers an invaluable service of food, shelter and simple kindness
‘THERE’S ONE thing about this day centre: It doesn’t run short of food,” says John McCrea with evident glee, as he polishes off a beef stew at the Capuchin Day Centre for Homeless People on Bow Street in Dublin. McCrea, who has lived on a disability pension since a brain operation rendered him unable to work, has been coming here for 30 years for a warm welcome and a hot meal.
“If it didn’t exist, I’d probably sit in the Ilac [Shopping Centre] for a couple of hours, or go down to Busáras, and sit there for a few hours,” he says of the days that stretch before him after he leaves his temporary accommodation every day. Yet he is grinning from ear to ear as he heaps praise on a place where people know his name, and where he has come to feel at home.
“I just come here for a few hours, for a change of scenery. I wouldn’t be able for the streets,” he says.
McCrea is one of hundreds who pass through the doors of this busy building by Smithfield Square, which serves more than 700 breakfasts and close to 2,000 hot dinners a week to whoever walks through its open doors. Run by the Irish Capuchin Franciscan Order, it has been catering to all comers for nigh on 40 years, since a young brother decided that something had to be done to help the Dublin poor appearing daily on the friary doorstep.
“I suppose they were being hunted around from church to church, and nobody wanted them, and so for that reason I thought that we should do something for them,” recalls Br Kevin Crowley, now 73, the man who founded the centre in the late 1960s that he continues to manage to this day. Initially run on voluntary donations, the Capuchin Day Centre began by doling out soup and sandwiches for a few dozen that came to the door.
“When we started we had about 50 to 60 people coming in,” recalls Crowley. “Then the numbers started getting bigger and bigger and we had to extend and extend. From about 50 at the start we now have about 110 for breakfast daily from Monday to Saturday, and in the afternoon we’d have about 320 for dinner.”
All this takes place in the ground-floor hall, decked out these days with seasonal decorations downstairs and buzzing with chatter as regulars and new arrivals file in to receive their token, which entitles them to soup, bread, tea and sandwiches in the morning, or a full dinner and dessert until 3pm. The majority are men, many of them older, although young families are also catered for as is evidenced by the children tucking in with obvious relish to the meals and milk provided.
Nine full-time members of staff and countless volunteers are involved in the administration of these daily meals, as well as the other facilities provided by the centre, which include showers, clothing parcels, a weekly GP clinic, a counselling service, and 500 food parcels given out once a week containing basic household staples and provisions for those who come to collect them. Yet perhaps the most important service remains the centre’s provision of a meeting point, a place to go for those forced to leave their hostels in the morning and forbidden to return before nightfall.
Those like Mark Harmon, whose drug addiction has taken its toll on his family relationships, and who finds himself in hostel accommodation as he attempts to sort out his life. Now on a methadone programme, Harmon, at 27, has been coming to the Capuchin Day Centre for three years.
“I’m in a hostel at the moment, but it doesn’t open till eight o’clock at night so I am on the streets in a way. You get a call at a quarter past nine, and you’ve to be out at 10, and you have to go back between eight and 11 at night.” In between, Harmon makes his way to Bow Street. “I get something to eat, and sometimes I might have a shave. They’re very good if you ever need socks or boxer shorts, or laundry doing. They’ll always look after you. It’s a very good service,” he says gravely, then laughs at his own earnestness. “It’s free as well so it’s even better.”
IT MIGHT BE FREE to those who require its services, but the cost of operating the Capuchin Day Centre these days runs to some €900,000 a year. Half of this comes from Government funding, which covers much of the centre’s administrative cost, but with rising food prices and growing numbers availing of the services, a further €450,000 is needed, usually sourced from donations and fundraising activities, with some even coming from those who once had to avail of the services themselves.
“Many Polish people used the centre for the purpose of finding a job or finding accommodation, and as soon as they found a job and accommodation they were gone from here,” explains Br Crowley. “But a lot of them came back and made donations towards the centre.”
Regardless of personal circumstances, country of origin or legal status, the ethos of the day centre is to welcome all comers without questions. “Everybody is treated with respect. We feel that it’s difficult enough for them to be coming in without asking them questions.”
Such a lack of discrimination in its door policy might seem to invite trouble. “There are times when you might have a little bit of a flare up,” admits Crowley, adding with impressive equanimity: “You would expect that, because of the lives they are living. They are very difficult lives. A lot of these people would get up in the morning and they’re not sure they’re going to have a bed at night time.”
Others, such as Pat Carpenter, have homes, but use the centre for other purposes. “It’s something to do and somewhere to go, and I meet people,” explains Carpenter, whose visual impairment means he cannot cook for himself. “I meet the former baker, the printer, the candlestick maker, the bricklayer, the carpenter. We all have a past here.”
Carpenter is happy with the services at the centre, and with the kindnesses he receives from those who work there. “I don’t think it requires improvement, but if I was to win the National Lottery, I’d be very kind to Br Kevin, and I’m sure he’d find some good use for it.”
The truth is, Crowley has already found a use for more money, having applied for funding to allow him to extend the centre’s opening hours until six in the evening, in the hope that this will decrease the gap between the close of the centre and the evening opening hours at hostels.
Doing so, however, would add some €125,000 to the cost of operating the centre. “There might be some rich person out there that might give us a few thousand to keep it going,” he says optimistically.
Whether he’ll find such an individual given the nation’s current economic travails is another matter. Yet for those who come to the Capuchin Day Centre, the benefits are invaluable.
“I’ve no complaints about anything,” says John McCrea with a smile as he settles down for his post-prandial cup of tea. “I only use one day centre, and that’s here. I’m very happy with it.”
The Capuchin Day Centre is on Bow Street, Smithfield, Dublin 7.
www.homeless.ie