Mum and three toddlers with no home to go to

A homeless mum woke up in a city B&B this morning not knowing where she and her three young children will sleep tonight.

Jacqueline O’Grady, from Ballybane, has been on Galway City Council’s housing waiting list for over seven years – and she still has no idea when, if ever, she and her family will be allocated a home.

Lone parent Jacqueline (26), and her three girls – all under the age of four – have been living out of a suitcase in emergency temporary accommodation for the past 10 days.

Prior to that, since last February, she had been staying in a charity homeless hostel for single women in Salthill because she couldn’t meet rent payments.

Jacqueline has issued a cry for help – all she wants is a place to call home.

“It’s very frustrating. The hardest part is you don’t know where you’re going to be one night to the next. I’m sick of it. It’s not fair on the children either. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she says.

The Council has been paying for B&Bs and hotels for her since last Tuesday – money Jacqueline thinks would be better spent on doing-up the city’s vacant houses to make a permanent home for her family.

Galway City Council, in a statement issued to the Galway City Tribune, says it is being proactive in addressing the homeless crisis.

City councillor Mike Cubbard says Jacqueline is the human face of the city’s worsening housing crisis, with as many as 15,000 people on the Council’s waiting list.

For the full story on jacqueline’s plight, see this week’s Galway City Tribune