This Christmas, there will be over 4,400 children in homelessness in Ireland. For children like Emma, this will be the second Christmas they have no place to call home.
Emma is only nine years old, but she has already spent one year and two months of her young life in homelessness. This time last year, her family spent their first Christmas in homelessness. It was a Christmas her mother will never forget.
“We put a little six-inch plastic tree on the window sill. And the kids put tinsel around the door. There was no room for anything else.”
“She’s a little angel. Whenever she saw me upset she’d do something to try and make me laugh. But you could see it was hurting her. She was so sad all the time. It broke my heart to see her like that”
Kate, mother of Mia, Oisin and Molly.“She’s nearly a year old now. But I haven’t heard her laugh in months. That’s what homelessness is doing to her.”
Kate, mother of Mia, Oisin and Molly“We used to have a garden but there is no space here. I take the kids out to the park but when I tell him we have to come back here he has a meltdown. He just doesn’t want to be here”
Kate, mother of Mia, Oisin and MollyIf you could stand for a moment in the small room in emergency accommodation that Emma, her sister, baby brother and her two parents are now living in, it would shock you. The only space Emma has now is the top of her bunk bed. That’s where she sleeps. Where she eats. Where she plays.
But thanks to the support of people like you, our Family Homeless Action Team has been able to provide Emma and her family with the practical day to day support they need, from expert advice on housing applications to a Child Support Worker to help Emma work through the trauma of homelessness.
Thanks to people like you, we’re able to move one family like Emma’s out of homelessness and back into a home of their own, every single day.
Please, will you make a special Christmas gift today to help more families like Emma’s?
