'I’ll never leave the apartment now, that’s my home now' — Terry Kearney
Terry Kearney was a patient in St Brendan’s psychiatric hospital in Grangegorman during the late 1990s before moving into supported housing for 18 years. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
A housing charity helping people with mental health conditions is expanding its work in Limerick and now has 452 homes nationwide, the Housing Association for Integrated Living (Hail) annual report for 2022 shows.
People can see an "unreal difference" to their lives when this help kicks in, Hail CEO Martina Smith said.
Some 15 homes are now provided in Limerick with plans for 11 more. The approved housing body also works in counties Kildare, Laois, Offaly, and Longford as well as in four Dublin council areas.
Last year 64 properties were allocated to new tenants, and 589 people received mental health tenancy support to help them stay in their homes through difficult times.
Among 29 new homes added to their lists were 17 delivered through a project targeting large residential centres.
This ‘stock transfer project’ sees former HSE residential sites renovated and made suitable for modern independent living, supported by local authorities.
Ms Smith said 70% of the charity's tenants have severe and enduring mental health conditions with HAIL providing practical housing help in parallel with medical help from the HSE.
“The difference it makes is unreal,” she said. “The difference it makes — maybe not everybody can appreciate that because they don’t see people when they are unwell and then when they come into our tenancy they are on their recovery.”
The mix reflects Hail’s origins, having been started by members of St Brendan’s Mental Health Association, which is connected to St Brendan’s psychiatric hospital in Grangegorman.
In Limerick Hail works closely with Limerick City Council and the local HSE offices.
“We’ve got 11 more properties we are hoping to deliver this year,” she said, in addition to the 15 in place.
“Our plan is to grow in Limerick and to continue growing and build on that in terms of our mental health tenancy sustainment.”
The charity aims to own the properties, working with councils and the HSE to allocate these to people off the council lists.
“We started originally in Limerick through a stock transfer of properties from the HSE, we would have a close relationship with the HSE there,” she said.
“It would have been moving people out of a congregated setting model into more independent living.”
While Hail works mainly around Dublin currently, she said: “This is our first step into Munster, it’s been a really good partnership.
“We hope to get really involved in policy and the plans for provision of homes for people with disabilities in Limerick.”
The national housing crisis is a growing issue however, with Hail predominantly looking for one-bedroom apartments around the country.
Some 56% of all social housing need nationally is for one-person households.
“The challenge for us is to get the one-beds (apartments) and to deliver the one-beds. That is always a challenge, particularly in the current environment,” Ms Smith said.
“We rely a lot on partnerships work with developers, other organisations, local authorities, and if the building is slowing down, then we are slowing down as well.”
Local authorities can buy new houses from property developers for social and affordable housing under Part V of the planning laws.
She said: “I think it is important that any Part V allocation, would have an allocation within that for people with mental health difficulties as well, specifically.”
Looking forward, she would like to see Hail funded to meet these challenges, saying: “We need sustainable funding, that reflects the real cost of delivering the service.
“It hasn’t been significantly increased for many years, over seven years now and organisations like ourselves can’t continue to survive with limitations on the funding.”
• For more information, click here Hail.ie.
Among the challenges facing Terence Kearney when he moved into an apartment to live on his own for the first time six years ago, the quietness stands out.
Now 59, the Dubliner had spent most of his life with other people in institutions or residential settings, surrounded by the noise of their living.
“Loneliness was the hard thing, I was probably afraid of not waking up and nobody finding me,” he said. “I thought I would stay only two weeks.”
A patient in St Brendan’s psychiatric hospital in Grangegorman during the late 1990s, he then lived in supported housing on Cork Street for 18 years.
While there, he was introduced to housing charity Hail who talked to him about ways to live independently, while still keeping the medical help from the HSE he needs.
“I wanted to get my own place,” he said. “We hadn’t locks on the bedroom doors either there, it was a high-dependency unit with nurses. You couldn’t have locks in case someone tried to kill themselves.”
It was time to move, he said, explaining: “Loads of people lived out their days there. I could have stayed, but I wanted to make a move.”
Terence was born in St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on the Navan Road and he talks quietly about discovering his mother had died before he could meet her again as an adult.
The last time he saw her, he was just nine years old.
His family life has however taken a better turn in parallel with his new-found stability, with a particularly special moment earlier this month when he re-united with his sister after 50 years.
He smiles broadly as he explains the detective work he and his social worker put in to find her in England, with help from Barnardos.
“I couldn’t have done that before, I wouldn’t have been able physically and mentally probably,” he said.
“You'd want to have seen me, I was like a skeleton, I was that skinny.”
He had support too over the years from a nun who helped care for him as a child, saying she visited him everywhere he lived later in life. “She was my second mother,” he said.
Now in his turn he gives speeches about getting help and talks to people at his day centre at Thomas Court about their options.
“I respect anyone who does that; everyone has problems. Some have more problems than others, but at my stage now I’m not facing problems but I had my times.”
His apartment is decorated to his own taste and he controls who visits.
“That is my home now,” he said. “I’ll never leave the apartment now, that’s my home now. That’s the best thing about HAIL, it’s life-long tenancy.”
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