Case study: Sophia Housing comes to aid of vulnerable couple

Jonathan Flood (28) and his partner Tracy O'Connor (29) were homeless for almost two years and had slept in a tent on winter nights, before being offered a home by Sophia Housing last November.

Flood, who has been homeless for most of the past decade, has suffered multiple trauma since his early teens, including finding his mother after she attempted suicide, the death of a girlfriend "in my arms" following a drug overdose, and finding his cousin's body at the foot of one of the Ballymun towers. He had been thrown from the top floor during a row. He has also come through heroin addiction.

The couple said they “couldn’t believe it” when they heard they had been chosen as one of the couples to whom Sophia Housing would offer a home.

“Before we got this place, I was feeling tired all the time, didn’t think my life was worth anything, didn’t think there was any point in looking after myself. Since we moved in here I have put on 3½ stone and I have colour back in my cheeks,” said Flood.

New home

Flood and O’Connor are one of the couples living in the new facility, which opened last December. All the residents are considered particularly vulnerable and in need of support. The complex employs nine social care staff and each couple has a key worker to support them towards independent living.

The residents were offered places after being put forward by agencies working with the homeless, in conjunction with Dublin City Council. They were interviewed, in some cases twice, before being offered places.

Project manager Susie O’Keeffe said some had been sleeping rough the night before their interviews. “Their hands were ice-cold when they arrived and shook your hand. They were always on time, sometimes early, which, given how chaotic their lives can be on the streets, shows just how important it was for them to be here, to get this .”

The project in Dublin’s north inner city is funded by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and the Department of Housing, with maintenance staff employed through the Department of Social Protection’s community employment scheme.