Five-year-old boy eating dinner from a sheet of cardboard shows reality of the homeless crisis

Heartbreaking.

Earlier this week, the Homeless Street Café shared a photo of a five-year-old boy eating his dinner from a sheet of cardboard in the cold October weather. The volunteer group are based in Grafton Street between 8 and 11 pm every Tuesday night and this week, they posted the photo of Sam asking "can we really accept this"? The harrowing image on Tuesday was shared on Facebook together with the below message:

"We are home after another incredibly busy night. I’m exhausted, weary and emotional and should (guiltily) go to bed BUT there is an image burnt in all the teams minds tonight. It’s wrong and it’s distressing but this IS happening and it’s only getting worse each week. “Sam” is 5 and this was him eating a dinner of carbonara tonight on a sheet of cardboard Can we really accept this?"

The post has since been shared thousands of times with social media users expressing shock, outrage and sadness. Only last month reports showed an additional 103 children were added to the homeless list. There are currently more than 10,000 homeless people in Ireland with approximately 4,000 of those being children. Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan recently spoke out about these shocking figures by saying;

"These latest figures make for grim reading and show that not only has the homelessness crisis not gone away, it is getting worse, and Government policy is failing to resolve it. The simple fact remains that the Government is still not building enough homes, which in turn continues to heap pressure on the already inflated rental sector."

With limited social housing and rising prices in private rentals, more and more families are finding themselves forced into emergency accommodation. There are a number of volunteer groups and organisations working to help those in need but the reality is that drastic change is need to prevent children like Sam being subjected to these conditions. The Homeless Street Café are a group of volunteers who offer food, toiletries, clothes and friendship to the homeless. If you would like to help support them you can contact them through their Facebook page. Image via The Homeless Street Café