Councillor shocked with Mayo homeless figures

By Tom Gillespie

THERE are over 100 local people homeless in Mayo, a member of Mayo County Council has revealed in a shock disclosure.

These families, including many children, are on the breadline, according to Councillor Michael Kilcoyne.

And because they have been housed in emergency accommodation by the local authority they are forced, on tight budgets, to eat out because there are no cooking facilities in their hotel or accommodation rooms.

Councillor Kilcoyne said: “On a daily basis we in the MD try to deal with issues people have but the issues are becoming more complicated.

“We now have a situation which we never had before of homelessness in Mayo and in the Castlebar Municipal District.

“There are over 100 people at the moment in emergency accommodation in the county. This is impacted by the lack of town councils because the town councils used to always build a certain amount of houses. On average they would build 30 a year, maybe 40.

“But in the last 10 years, there has been nothing built by the town councils because they are no longer in existence.

“The result is there are more and more people becoming homeless as a result of not being able to afford to pay rent and many of these 100 people in emergency accommodation in Mayo are children.

“That is so sad because they move from place to place and there are even ‘auld stock’ of the town of Castlebar in such accommodation as they cannot pay the rent.

“But because they are in emergency accommodation they have to go out to buy their breakfast, lunch and dinner, where before they used to cook their meals at home.”

He continued: “These are things I never thought of until I spoke to these people who are in emergency accommodation - no breakfast, no lunch, no supper. Some of these would be pensioners on a fixed income of €250 week.

“They have to pay a certain amount to the council in rent and then have to go out and buy all their meals as they cannot cook in emergency accommodation hotel rooms as there is no facilities to do so.”