A homeless man in Cork, forced to live in a caravan despite working two jobs and six-day weeks, has been told the council may remove it.
Jonathan O’Hanlon, 33, has been living in the caravan in Cobh with no water or electricity since June of last year.
The working man also has no toilet, no shower, no cooker or fridge in the makeshift home and the caravan is bare inside with floors that are nearly rotted away.
Jonathan had been couch surfing for years before the move to the caravan and despite earning a good wage, has not been able to find a place to rent.
He was given the caravan by a local good samaritan who spotted him sleeping in his van in a church carpark and made contact with Jonathan’s family to learn more about his situation.
Jonathan luckily has the support of family members who allow him to shower and wash clothes in their homes but said his nightshifts make it hard for him to stay in someone’s home.
He admitted he feels like a “burden” on his family and is “embarrassed” to be living in the caravan.
Opening up on his situation, Jonathan told Red FM’s Neil Prendeville Show: “I literally just sleep here, and that’s it. I try to spend as little time here as possible because this is severely mentally challenging to be living like this.
“I go out there and I drive that van between two and three in the morning until about ten or eleven in the morning and then I come back to Cobh and I go working with another guy until five or six.
“Just because I don’t want to be coming back here to this and this is what I’m coming back to after working.”
He added: “It’s very embarrassing.
“Sometimes there when I come home in the morning and all the people are out walking I probably stand over by the railing for ten or fifteen minutes because I don’t want them to see me coming in here.”
Jonathan has been looking for a place to rent but revealed most places he sees posted online turn out to be scams.
He has also applied for the housing list multiple times with the help of a local TD but has been refused – with one reason given being his lack of an address.
He explained: “They’ve asked me to write down my sister’s address. If I write that down they’re going to charge my sister extra money for someone that’s not living in the house.
“They’ve done it before. There was someone helping me out a couple of years back and when I told the council who it was that helped me out, they got on to that person and they made them pay back the rent for the amount of time I was in the house.
“Which is why I’ve done this. I don’t want anyone else having to do that.”
‘THEY REALLY SCARED ME’
And he also revealed Cork County Council are threatening to remove his caravan, leaving him with no place to go.
He had originally parked up the caravan in his sister’s driveway but she received notice from the council instructing her it needed to be removed.
Jonathan is now parked up at the spot in Cobh with other caravans where he feels “safe” with a Garda station just up the road.
“I literally just sleep here, and that’s it. I try to spend as little time here as possible because this is severely mentally challenging to be living like this.”
Jonathan O’Hanlon
However, the threat of the only home he knows being gone one morning has put him under immense stress.
Jonathan explained: “They did tell me at one stage that there will be a morning. I’ll come home from work and my caravan won’t be here and that caused me a serious, serious amount of stress.
ABANDON NOTICE
He continued: “They put an abandon notice on my caravan when I first put it here. I was actually away working and when I came back there was an abandon notice on the caravan.
“So I took it off and I rang the council and I asked them why there was an abandon notice on the caravan And he said because there was no one there when they knocked.
“I was at work trying to get the finances to get out of here. But, you know they really scared me that time when they told me that it wasn’t going to be here some morning when I come home.”
HEALTH CONCERNS
He added: “That was back in August. And ever since then they call down every few months and they ask me to move and I tell them there’s nowhere for me to move it.
“If they tell me somewhere – if there is somewhere that the council know I can put the caravan without causing hassle for anyone.
“We’re going to have the liners docking there now in the next couple of weeks and they’re not going to want me here. So they’re going to do what they can to get me out but I keep asking them if they tell me just where I can put it.”
DOCTOR’S ADVICE
The only service available to Jonathan is the Simon Community shelters, but as a recovering alcoholic his doctor has advised him against taking a place there due to relapse concerns.
However, his doctor is also concerned about the mental toll on Jonathan that comes with living in the caravan.
Jonathan added: “I’m slowly but surely running myself into the ground.”
The Irish Sun reached out to Cork County Council for a comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
