A wheelchair user who had to crawl up and down the stairs of his rented home for the last four years has finally been placed in a ground floor apartment suited to his needs.
“The housing situation in Ireland is a nightmare,” says Glenn Quinn (63), “but it is worse for those of us with a disability.”
Mr Quinn was diagnosed in 2015 with a degenerative autoimmune disease called Inclusion Body Myositis, which gradually weakens the muscles over time.
“The sad thing is, what you’re able to do today, next week, you might not be able to,” he says.
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Mr Quinn is an Irish citizen and moved to Ireland from South Africa 26 years ago. He taught martial arts for a living and has two daughters.
When he moved into his two-storey rented house in Citywest in August 2020, he was on crutches and had to crawl up the stairs to get to his bedroom and bathroom.
Since then, his condition further deteriorated and he began using a wheelchair in June 2022.
“I have to drive to the door, get out of the wheelchair and hobble down the passage to get to close the door behind me and, then, crawl up the stairs to get to the bedroom and bathroom,” Mr Quinn says.
The unsuitable living conditions and the degenerative nature of his disease mean his condition has become worse over time.
“It got so severe that I was slipping on the stairs and my landlord actually said to me, ‘Look, I can’t have you here any more,‘” Mr Quinn says.
In November 2022, his landlord gave him notice to leave and he has been unable to find any suitable accommodation in that time.
The Irish Wheelchair Association has been advocating for Mr Quinn and his landlord has extended the lease on a month by month basis while he sought another place to live.
He is in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment but was unable to find somewhere on the private rental market that was wheelchair accessible and within his budget.
Mr Quinn has been on the social housing list for a number of years but had been advised by South Dublin County Council that he had to be homeless before being eligible to be referred to homeless services.
“Mentally, I’ve been challenged to the edge, thinking, ‘When is it going to happen?’ It was put off, put off, put off,” he says.
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On Thursday, one day before he was due to leave his Citywest home with nowhere else to go, Mr Quinn received a call from the council saying they had found somewhere for him.
The ground floor apartment is in Saggart, close to where he lives now, and is owned and managed by Approved Housing Body Clanmil. It will be ready for him to move into in the coming weeks.
While Mr Quinn says it was “fantastic” to receive this news, he feels there is a disconnect between housing services and those with medical needs.
“It’s taken two and a half years of being in a wheelchair before I’m actually being moved. How much is enough?”
