FOR the last two years, the Mid West Simon Community Twin Oaks Family Hub is where Limerick man Jonathan O’Leary and his family have called home.
Jonathan, his wife Anne-Marie, and their three children, all under the age of 10, moved into the hub on the Dublin Road in 2023 after finding themselves homeless and living in a hotel.
They remain at the hub today, despite their desperate search for a home of their own, preparing for their third Christmas in emergency accommodation.
The hub accommodates nine other families, who each have just a double bedroom to dine, sleep, and bathe. They all share a communal kitchen space.
Mid West Simon, in conjunction with the Simon Communities of Ireland, hosted a conference in Limerick on Tuesday (September 23) to address food poverty and family homelessness in the region.
Speaking to the Limerick Post at the conference in the Strand Hotel, Jonathan opened up about the toll homelessness has taken on his family.
“The hub is a great place to be when you have nowhere, but after a while it messes with your head. It’s mentally very hard, you have no space or privacy,” he said.
Jonathan, who is a recovering drug addict, says living in emergency accommodation, especially sharing with others, can be a challenge for his sobriety.
“Sometimes these family hubs and homeless accommodation centres are just riddled with drugs. You’re trying to keep yourself and your family safe, but it’s very hard to do that when there’s people in these places using and taking drugs,” he explained.
“You’re finding tablet wrappers and small bags, so as an addict, that can be a big trigger. It’s like having dog food in front of a dog but expecting them not to eat it.”
Families in the hub have to share a communal kitchen to cook meals, but Jonathan says his family avoid using the space, travelling to his wife’s mother’s home to cook instead.
“How can you cook when people aren’t even cleaning up after themselves? My daughter has a peanut allergy and she’s allergic to soy and eggs as well, so knowing that people are down there leaving rubbish on the tables and countertops, knowing your daughter could get an allergic reaction, we can’t do it,” he says.
Since becoming homeless, Jonathan’s eldest son has developed social anxiety, which teachers at his school attribute to the family’s housing situation.
The toll of their living situation has seen Jonathan and wife Anne-Marie both attend counselling to help them navigate daily life in the hub.
“If our kids are invited over to their friends house for a playdate, we can’t return the favour because we don’t have our own space,” the Limerick man explained.
And while the family are full of praise for Mid West Simon and the staff, they say “they can only do so much”.
Mid West Simon will meet with government officials in Leinster House this Thursday (September 25) to outline their demands ahead of Budget 2026.
The latest official figures from the Department of Housing revealed that the number of families homeless living in emergency accommodation in the Mid West has jumped by a third since last year to 147 at the end of July.
Overall in July, 510 people were homeless in Limerick and 79 in Clare.
Over 1,100 families in the Mid West are availing of food banks through the Mid West Simon Community, but this figure does not include support from other service providers or Mid West Simon clients in the region.
For Jonathan and his family, the request from the government is simple – deliver more housing.
“From a person who has been in homeless accommodation fighting for a house the last two years, I’ve seen not one bit of this happening. Normal Joe Soaps like me and my family need a house, my kids are suffering and it needs to change.”
