Charity worker describes how being homeless left her feeling suicidal

By Bairbre Holmes, PA

A charity worker has described how she was left feeling suicidal when she found herself without a place to live.

Marie Farrell, originally from Kildare but now living in Dublin, started using Focus Ireland’s services when she found herself homeless three years ago.

At that point she was coming out of addiction, struggling with her mental health and “carrying grief, shame and guilt”.

She said she “felt like a statistic” and “was suicidal at one point because I didn’t think I mattered”.

Now housed, she works for the charity helping people dealing with homelessness, addiction and mental health issues and aims to give people hope.

Speaking at the launch of its annual report, she said the help she received from her key worker saved her life.

“For a long time, I couldn’t see a way out,” she said of being homeless for eight months.

“If you can imagine going into a very dark, dark room with no windows and doors and feeling that you’ll never get out.

“I’ve been suicidal at one point. I thought: How can I ever be happy?”

After receiving support from Focus Ireland, the mother-of-two went on to further education.

In college, she said she worked “not just on my studies, but on myself, and I faced my fears.”

Now she is based at the charity’s cafe, The Coffee Shop, which provides subsidised hot meals along with an advice and information service.

She said she uses her own experiences to support customers and said that her own personal story helps create a connection.

“I will give them my personal story. Then they usually lift the head up because they don’t believe that someone could be working in the services that’s actually been where they are.

“I’m one of the lucky ones, very lucky ones, that got out of it, but I will fight tooth and nail to help these people every day.”

Discussing what she describes as Ireland’s “massive” housing crisis, she said “we need action now”.

“My message to the government is, put down your pens and paper, start making children the number one (priority).”

She said every child and parent should have “somewhere to call their home”.

“That they can go to bed at night and their head isn’t racing worrying. Worrying themselves sick with stress on where they’re going to be the next week, or the week after that.”

Ms Farrell is grateful not just for the home she now has, but for the the quality time she can spend with her “two remarkable, beautiful” daughters.

“We get to cuddle up, get a takeaway, watch a good movie together.

”This probably sounds normal for you, but for a long time I didn’t get to do this.”