'I am living proof' of hope after homelessness says Focus Ireland worker
'I was suicidal at one point, because I didn’t think I mattered... It was only my key worker that made me start to believe in myself.' Marie Farrell now works with Focus Ireland, the group that helped her get her life together. Picture: Leah Farrell/Photocall
‘My passion every day is to go into work to give these people some hope’
Three years ago, Marie Farrell fell into homelessness.
Struggling with mental health issues and addiction, the 46-year-old Kildare native contemplated taking her own life. She was homeless for eight months.
Today, she has a home, living with her two daughters, and a career, working for homeless charity Focus Ireland — the group that helped her get her life together — as a peer worker, dealing with people who are in the exact same situation she herself was in.
There are currently more than 16,000 people homeless in Ireland, a figure that has been on a relentless march upwards each month for well over a decade. But Marie insists that homeless people are more than just a statistic.
“You do feel like one. I was suicidal at one point, because I didn’t think I mattered, I didn’t think I was anybody. It was only my key worker that made me start to believe in myself,” Marie says.
“I worked on myself and I faced my fears. Then I believed I could be somebody. But I know how lucky I am to sit here today, and there’s thousands out there who want to be where I’m sitting.
"And really and truly, until something big starts to happen we’re all going to be standing here next year with the same idea, and it’s not enough anymore.”
She believes the political class is content to accept the homeless numbers, to wait on housing construction to catch up with demand. But Marie suggests an approach to help remember that these are real people we are talking about.
“I would say, go to your own home, if you have children, nieces, nephews. Go to a GAA match. Look at the people that’s around you, then close your eyes and try and believe and see that these are people in hotel rooms. These people are in emergency accommodation,” she says.
“What we feel is a treat — getting to stay in a hotel for a night — they are in that hotel for months upon months, maybe with three or four children and a husband.
"I can never imagine what these parents are going through.”
She said no child should ever have to experience that.
“I now have a home. I have two remarkable, beautiful daughters. We get to cuddle up, get a takeaway, and watch a good movie together, spend quality time as a mother and her daughters.
"It probably sounds normal to you, but for a long time I didn’t get to do this. My heart breaks for the over 5,000 children and parents who don’t have anywhere to call home.”
Marie also knows that her own story has shown that it is possible to go from despair to back on your feet.
“My passion every day is to go into work to give these people some hope. You know, I am living proof of it. So there’s no ‘I can’t’. I want to hear ‘I can, I can, I can’. And I’ll do everything I can to help them.”
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