'If you had put me in a fridge I would have been warmer,' one homeless man tells Shane Hegarty, who joins a Simon team
It's 9.30pm in Dublin city centre. Even if the air has lost some of the bitterness of previous nights, it is cold. At the Wolfe Tone monument at St Stephen's Green, Darren - homeless since April - is getting a sandwich from the Dublin Simon Community soup run. In and out of prison in recent years, this is Darren's second spell on the streets. The first time was the summer of 2001, so this will be his first Christmas without a roof over his head. "You know the horrible thing that really depresses me is that you're going around looking at people going out shopping and they're enjoying it and you're walking around like a dummy. I'm even counting down the days to Christmas, because it's depressing me what I'm even going to do that day. You see, I've been in prison the last seven or eight Christmases."
What's Christmas like in prison? "It's better than out here." Darren has an alcohol problem. He flirted with heroin during his first spell on the streets, but he gave that up. Desperately worried about his future, he has attempted to throw himself in the Royal Canal.
"I know loads of people on the streets and the way they have to live is inhuman. I drink. I'm after cutting down an awful lot during the day, but it's because of the night-time you need to drink so it'll knock you out. Then you wake up and straight away you're back on the bottle. And you're walking around like this - filthy dirty." His fleece top has a broken zip. He wears gloves but no hat. "You wake up on hard ground and you're soaking on one side or you've frost around you, especially the last few nights. When I say cold, if you had put me in a fridge I would have been warmer."
A Dubliner in his 30s, he is estranged from his family. However, he recently met his sister, an encounter he found very emotional. He'll occasionally bump into someone he used to know.
"They'll turn around and say, 'Jesus Christ, you're not on the streets are you?' And they just know by looking at you that you're on the streets. Other homeless people would walk by me and ask me questions about the soup run or whatever, and I'd be saying to myself, 'I must really be looking rough'." Tonight, Darren is waiting for Dublin City Council's Night Bus, which places homeless people in temporary accommodation - he hopes to get a bed for the night.
MEANWHILE, A PASSING Dublin Simon Community outreach team gives him advice about where to get fresh clothes, a shower and anything else he needs to know. The outreach team's job is to fill the city's available beds, make contact with the homeless, build relationships and advise them about services, before referring them to support services, including mental health services, transitional housing, resettlement programmes and employment training.
Tonight's team comprises Fran, an outreach worker for a year, and Karin, who works in the detox unit but is observing for the night.
Across its seven communities in Ireland, Simon has 220 staff and more than 400 part-time and full-time volunteers. It never needs to advertise for volunteers; instead, there is often a waiting list to get onto training courses.
The team begins its night at the volunteer-run Social Club on Camden Street - frequented by both homeless people and those in accommodation - for a briefing with the soup run teams. Then, embarking on a tour of the city centre, they soon met a young man "tapping" (begging) after only a couple of months on the street. This being the team's first contact with him, he is not pressed for too much personal information or badgered about available services.
ANOTHER MAN IS tracked down to an alleyway and reminded that he is due to start Simon's three-week detox programme in the morning. If he comes through that, he will go into a three-month rehabilitation programme, and hopefully will be settled and receive employment training.
Tonight, the outreach team has one spare bed to offer (for a female only), but when the team finds a suitable candidate she turns it down, fearing she is too drunk for it. She's not, but ultimately it's her choice, says Fran, who patiently builds up relationships and is understandably protective of what Simon calls its "service users". Ian average week, 120 people will sleep rough in Dublin city centre, staying on the street for a variety of reasons, such as behavioural or addiction problems, because they might feel intimidated in a hostel, or because they've become institutionalised. In Dublin, this is a falling number because of the increasing amount of emergency beds available. Dublin City Council has 1075 B&B and 88 private hostel beds, alongside the 500 voluntary hostel beds. But in Ireland more than 5,500 people are believed to be homeless.
They don't find someone to take this bed tonight, so they pass it on to the Night Bus, which fills it. Ultimately, though, the relationships begun by the outreach staff are aimed at leading homeless from the streets back into the community. Simon calls it a "continuum of care" - helping them clean up, settle in accommodation,find work, and not abandoning them along the way. Increasingly, the focus is moving towards prevention. A Tenancy Sustainment service has been launched, in association with the Homeless Agency, to identify those at risk of homelessness and try to hold them in the community.
JIMMY WYNNE HAS proven there is a way off the streets. Over a cup of tea in his Dublin city flat, he explains how he first slept rough at 16 after moving to Manchester. He left various homes because of problems with alcohol and depression. But having come through the Simon Community's detox, rehab and resettlement programme since March he has been living in accommodation run largely by its 19 residents. "Everyone does their bit. We had a resident's association meeting and we had nothing on the agenda other than the Christmas party." Jimmy has had some tough moments along the way, and admits to occasional relapses, but now aged 52 he is calling this his "retirement home".
On his mantlepiece, beside a poem called Don't Quit, is a picture of him only two years ago. Bearded and homeless, it depicts an almost stereotypical figure. Today, he's clean-shaven and obviously very physically fit. He is enthusiastic about his burgeoning acting career, and is writing a monologue about homelessness that will be performed in the summer. Now on the board of Dublin Simon Community (one of two service users on the board), he wants better services for the homeless, especially the young, who often fall into addiction.
"I do feel terrible when I see them. When I was 16 I didn't think things through. At 16 I thought I'd be okay. It was only in my 30s and 40s I began to think of how I could get out of this trap."
His room has a view of the bench by the Grand Canal, where he used to spend a lot of time, and from where he used to complain of the noise coming from the building site. "They'd be piledriving and I'd go over and give out about the noise. They told me there were apartments going up and I thought, 'more bleeding apartments'," he laughs. "I didn't know I was going to end up living in them."