'We were facing down the barrel of homelessness': Issue hits close to home for Cork local election candidate

A LOCAL election candidate has spoken of his own family’s traumatic experience of “facing down the barrel” of homelessness.

Trevor McCarthy, 39, from Kilmallock, Co Limerick, is campaigning for election for Sinn Féin in the Cork City South West ward in the upcoming local elections.

Mr McCarthy says housing is the recurring issue he hears about most on the doorsteps as he canvasses around Togher and Glasheen, and it’s an issue he knows about personally.

He and his wife, Rachel, had been living in their Togher home for eight years when their landlord put the property on the market.

“We were faced with homelessness, because on my full-time, and on my wife’s part-time wage as a florist, we wouldn’t have been able to afford anything that was €2,000 or more a month, so we were facing down the barrel of homelessness,” Mr McCarthy says.

“Rachel is from here, our two kids are in school here, and I moved here 11 years ago to go to UCC, so this is our home. I’ve been a volunteer with Togher Tidy Towns for years, I was coaching with Greenwood FC, and I helped start the Togher Community Garden.”

He credits former Sinn Féin councillors Eolan Ryng and Henry Cremin, current councillor Orla O’Leary, and TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, for helping them to get on the Cost Rental Tenant in-Situ (CRTiS) scheme.

“We contacted the council, they said they’d be open to it, we contacted our landlord, it was a six-month process.

“Thank God it exists, because it is a very good scheme, but it has flaws, and it needs to be better advertised, because a lot of the time the people who need the scheme don’t know about it.”

Mr McCarthy stepped in as one of Sinn Féin’s three candidates in the Cork City South West ward when Odran Corcoran, the previous candidate in the area, withdrew due to illness.

“It’s a massive ward, and as I’m from Togher and the Glasheen area, I’m concentrating my efforts in that area.”

Mr McCarthy is a horticulturalist, and he recently took a week’s holiday to leaflet the local estates.

“I’ve done everywhere: Palmbury, Westbury, Deanrock. I’ve covered a lot of kilometres, a lot of steps, but I’ve been ably supported by my comrades in the cumann, and friends and family.”

He says he has canvassed “well over a thousand houses”, and while “bread-and-butter issues”, like broken pavements, are mentioned, one issue is constant.

“It’s been housing, housing, housing,” Mr McCarthy says. “The amount of people I’ve come across with older children living in their box room, I’ve met nurses living in their cars, nurses working full-time and they can’t afford to rent, it’s crazy, and then you go around certain areas and you see family homes, boarded up. The vacancy and dereliction is there for all to see, and homelessness, and hidden homelessness, where people are couch-surfing, that’s a constant issue,” Mr McCarthy says.

“If I am elected, I hope to be able to bring lived experience of the housing crisis to council, and I would hope to be a conduit for people who are in trouble to help them stay in their homes.”