A Wexford father is facing homelessness after suffering the loss of his parents.
Sean Keegan and his brother, James, are being evicted by Wexford County Council from their family home of over thirty years. The reason? Their father died suddenly before adding them to the council tenancy.
Father-of-one Sean had only recently been able to establish a relationship with his 10-year-old daughter, from a previous relationship. He was excited to begin sharing custody, and the plan was to move into their father James Snr’s house in Duncormick with his brother following his death. He had planned a summer of bonding with his father and daughter.
He told MummyPages: “I was in the process of getting my full licence. The plan was that my father would accompany my daughter and I in the car and we would take her on trips outside of Wexford.
“The aquarium in Bray, Dublin Zoo...places like that. My dad had recently fixed the car up before he died.”
His father James had successfully beaten prostate cancer, as well as mourning the loss of his wife, Sean’s mother, to cancer three years before. He died of an unexpected heart attack in mid-March.
“Before he died, my dad talked about turning one of the rooms into one for my daughter. One of my friends was going to paint it that month,” Sean said. He asked that MummyPages not publish his daughter’s name or picture to protect her privacy.
His brother James moved back into the family home nine months before James Snr’s death. Following his sudden death, the two brothers notified the council and relevant social services.
The brothers assumed that James Jnr. had been added to the council books by their father as a tenant of the house. Since their father had notified the council of James’ tenancy, moving back into their childhood home wouldn’t be a problem.
They were shocked to find out this wasn’t the case. Upon learning that James hadn’t been added as a tenant, the council ordered them to vacate the premises and find alternative accommodation in three weeks.
“We thought we were doing the right thing by letting the appropriate people know of our father's passing. Obviously, that was an error on our part.”
Sean says the prospect of leaving their family home of thirty years is nothing short of devastating: “My mother fought her battle with cancer in that house. My grandfather also died in that house.
“We certainly did not expect the council to be so cold-hearted and tell us to pack up the house like that. There is still stuff in this house belonging to my mother that my father didn’t have the heart to move, and she passed three years ago, and now we are being told we have to in three weeks.”
Health Problems
While Sean grieves the recent loss of his parents, he has to deal with health issues of his own. He has sarcoidosis, a rare lung disease that sees the body reject its own lung. “I’ve been told that I might have osteoporosis after taking steroid medication for so long.”
Because of his disability, he has been waiting on the housing list for a two-bedroom bungalow for two years. Yet his family home will likely be given to the person at the top of list. Sean says he and his brother James will effectively become homeless if the council move to evict him. The three-week period has expired, but they are continuing to pay the weekly rent of €32.
Sean says: “We actually estimated that my father had paid €90k in rent over the thirty years he lived there.”
Sean and his family aren't alone in this situation, either. A representative from the Wexford Housing Action Group (WHAG) told MummyPages they would be contacted by ‘five people a day or more on average’ looking for support or themselves or their family. Indeed, there are currently over 4,000 people on Wexford’s social housing list. Up to 130,000 people and families are estimated to be on nationwide lists.
The Government has been trying to get families off their books by rolling in the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, which has been pegged as a replacement for rent allowance but is paid to private landlords directly. Even this has its detractors.
“When you are accepted for HAP, you are taken off the social housing list but they fail to tell you that when applying,” says Justin O’Malley, homelessness activist.
“Landlords that accept HAP are far and few between. If you go to a viewing there might be 20-30 other applicants viewing the same property and if you ask on the phone or mention HAP in advance, then there is a high possibility that you won't even get as far as a viewing just an automatic decline.”
