Carmel Askin was in her 60s when her landlord decided to sell up and she suddenly found herself homeless.
A lifelong renter, Ms Askin was living in Mayo for a number of years when she found herself in the position which left her feeling “hopeless and scared”.
She struggled to find anywhere to live, and at one point considered living in her car when she could not find long-term accommodation.
Her son and his family moved to Galway a year before, so she decided she would also move there to be near them.
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With a career in caring, she applied to an agency to be a live-in carer and hoped she would find somewhere to live in the meantime. She stayed in this role for three years until she retired, but was still not able to find anywhere to live.
Injury meant that she ultimately needed to retire, but she believes her age and retirement status went against her when she was looking for places to live.
“When they asked what age I was, I was told by a couple of places, ‘People here are usually in their 30s,’” she said.
Ms Askin moved in with her son but found it too difficult to live there long term as their residence was too small. She found someone who was looking for somebody to live with their elderly mother and remained there for a few months.
She says she has forgotten how many times she has moved.
“I was just exhausted at that stage,” she said. She went to the council in Galway to declare herself homeless.
After that she contacted the Simon Community, which provides homelessness services across Ireland. The charity managed to find her an apartment, but she had to move out five months later.
While on the housing list in Galway she was able to apply for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), but after applying to countless places she found that no landlord “would even consider” accepting it.
During this time, she remembers feeling “at the end of her tether”. “All I kept hearing was, ‘There is nothing, there’s thousands of people on the waiting list.’ I just felt I had nowhere else to go.”
Rather than being able to enjoy her retirement, she was instead met with “an awful lot of stress, really unexpected stress”. She said finding herself homeless “happened so quickly”.
“In Galway, the prices for rentals skyrocketed completely out of range of people on a pension,” she said.
[ Council rejects Tánaiste’s claim large number of homeless have no housing rightOpens in new window ]
She described the support from the Simon Community as “phenomenal”. “The emotional support, the whole lot, they were just there.”
Ms Askin now lives in a Simon Community house with other single homeless people. She has been there for two months and said she feels no stress.
On Monday, President Catherine Connolly will launch the Simon Communities of Ireland Report on Older Adult Homelessness at the University of Galway.
The report states that of the 11,376 adults now experiencing homelessness, 27.2 per cent are aged 45 to 64 and 2.3 per cent are 65 or older.
The number of homeless people aged 65 or older has increased by 165 per cent in Dublin and by 500 per cent in the west of Ireland since 2017, according to the report.
It said the reliance on private housing markets, rising rents and house prices, insufficient pension incomes, and a lack of age-friendly housing are increasing vulnerability among older people.
It also said when homelessness occurs in later life, it impacts physical health, mental wellbeing, social inclusion and emotional security.
The report makes six key policy recommendations, including: integrated national-level leadership; relevant existing legislation which can strengthen protections against housing loss should be identified (and new legislation developed) and fully implemented; a greater level of resourcing for homeless services; a robust policy response to gaps in access to age-friendly housing; a research programme, multi-level policy, strategic approaches, and community-based supports should be developed, underpinned by an ethos of involvement of older people with lived experience of homelessness.
Ber Grogan, executive director of Simon Communities of Ireland, said there is opportunity for “stronger political leadership and more co-ordinated policy action to turn existing commitments into tangible results and ensure that no older person is left without support”.
