Journey Home

“I’ve done everything from couch surfing to sleeping in alleyways, the worst kind of nights you can imagine. You’ve nothing to do, you’re literally walking the streets 24/7 with nowhere to go. I could easily have covered about 10 miles a day. It’s so mundane and repetitive.”

“Wintertime is horrible when you’re sleeping on the streets. With the damp weather, the rain and the cold, it was pretty rough.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve had hypothermia from sleeping out. When it starts coming on, you’d feel the shivers start but try to ignore them if you’re trying to get to sleep. When your body does start responding and tries to start moving, you start to spasm so much. That’s just your muscles trying to get energy going again. It’s a horrible feeling.”

“The Simon Community Soup Run was a lifeline. They’d turn up at very regular times in different parts of the city.”

“If you weren’t in those areas they’d do the rounds in different places and come and find you. You wouldn’t even have to ask, whatever they had they would give to you, clothing, some food or a hot drink.”

“I’ve gone through homelessness and I’ve come out the other end of it. I’m living in housing provided by the Simon Community now. My apartment is amazing and there’s a lovely garden. I’ve got a bed and a roof over my head. There’s privacy and mutual respect among all the residents. My health is back to normal.”

“I’ve done extremely well, but places like the Simon Community are crucial, without a doubt.”

Help more people like Michael begin their #journeyhome this winter.

“I was rough sleeping about a year. I slept in parks, in a squat, down lanes, in shop doorways. To be honest with you, I don’t know how I coped. It was very very scary.”

“You’re living in a different world. I felt I was invisible to everybody. People are just left there, invisible and forgotten.”

“The Simon Community hadn’t forgotten about me. They got me off the streets and saved my life. I’m very grateful for that, I really am. My first interaction with Simon was with the Rough Sleeper Team. They told me about Ushers Island, that they do a proper medical detox and you can go onto recovery.”

“It’s such a change going from a crazy world into the Simon Community where you have a warm bed, you have food and a shower and most importantly you have staff and volunteers around you that actually care.

“You’re going through this process of recovery with people and even though we’re all at different stages we’re all going through it together. We’re all there to support each other and we all learn from each other. It’s coming from where people are walking by you on the street to coming into this family. You’re a part of this community and there’s not one person there that doesn’t care.”

“It’s really important to feel part of a community and feel wanted like that because you don’t feel like that when you’re on the streets.”

“The teams here give you support and teach you new ways of coping. It’s going forward and trying to make a life for yourself. It’s all about the journey getting there. I want to think of the future because there’s no point in looking back. I’m going to strive for my life no matter what that means. What I’ve been through is what I’ve been through, and I ain’t going back.”

You can make a difference to the lives of people like Sinead.

“I was sleeping in the Phoenix Park and I went deep into depression. I just wanted to be on my own, I wanted to be isolated I just couldn’t do it anymore. There was a night shelter I used to stay in and one of the staff members said he would refer me to Simon’s Alcohol Detox service.

“When I went in I was nervous but I knew in my own heart and soul that I wanted to do it. I moved through the programme and then got a place in one of their Recovery Houses. I’m still there now. It’s a lovely house.

“I had a great key worker going through treatment. I could really trust her and I was able to tell her everything. I think in order to get the problem sorted you need to pull it from the root and work back up. She put me in touch with Simon’s Sure Steps Counselling services. My counsellor was brilliant. We just got on.

“I could feel myself changing. I was really starting to like myself again.”

“I always see the good out of a bad situation now, it wasn’t always like that, I can cope now. Maybe going through those seven years of pain with homelessness showed me how bad things were. I don’t know how many times I tried to give up drink or how many times I went to counselling, none of it worked out. Simon put everything in place for me in here and it worked.

“I first linked in with the Community Employment Scheme through my key worker in Recovery and I’ve been doing it just over a year now. The CE Scheme has been great for courses and putting everything in place that I need.

“Now when I look in the mirror I see the person I always wanted to be.”

“This morning when I woke up, the minute I got up out of the bed I was singing, just totally full of joy. It’s great to be alive I was saying to myself. That’s how I just keep going forward and forward. There’s no way I’m going back.”

You can help provide vital services to help more people like Danny on their #journeyhome.

“We bought an apartment over ten years ago. It was only a one bedroom so when we had my first daughter we stayed there until she was five but then tried to find somewhere bigger. The recession had hit so we weren’t able to sell, we tried renting but it just became so hard trying to keep up with rent and paying our mortgage so we became homeless and were placed in a hotel.

“It was very hard. My husband had to get up for work and try have normal day, knowing that we were all still in one room. We were living out of black bags, as we had no wardrobes to put the clothes. There was no facilities to cook, we couldn’t have microwave, we just had a kettle and that was it.

“I had to bring my little baby girl back to that hotel room from the hospital after she was born so it was five of us then.

“I had to wash her bottles in the bathroom sink as we couldn’t have a steriliser in the room. I couldn’t prepare meals for her.”

“We were so overjoyed when we heard a place had been found for us. I think we cried for about three days, we just didn’t think it was true, that it was real! The feeling of knowing that we don’t have to move again, I think that was the best part of it. The feeling of being here now and that’s it, we don’t have to move again, this is our home.

“The Simon Community were a brilliant support. Our keyworker from the resettlement team visited us for the first few months once a week or so, just to check in and make sure were settling in okay.

“He helped us set the place up and made sure we had everything we needed. He was a great help, I have to say and he still checks in with us to see how we are managing.”

“Homelessness really can happen to anyone. It could happen to anybody tomorrow. It’s very bad at the minute and it’s getting worse but every little bit helps. When you’re homeless and have nowhere to go, it’s great to feel that you have have support and there are people out there to help you. It makes you feel a little bit better, you don’t feel as if you’re on your own in the world.

You can support more people like Rachel and her family on their #journeyhome.