Greg DalyNobody should go hungry, Bro. Kevin Crowley tells Greg Daly
Although he received the freedom of the city of Dublin on February 28, just days after his 80th birthday, Bro. Kevin Crowley insists the award is “not for me”.
“It’s for the people I’m working for – for homeless people, and people in need. It’s for our volunteers and staff and benefactors too,” he says, stressing that “without them, under no circumstances would we be able to keep our lifeline in operation. We never have been short of food or money since the centre started.”
Describing himself as “honoured and privileged” to have been chosen to receive the award alongside John Giles, who, he says “is from around Church Street, and is a hero around here, to be honest”, Bro. Kevin says he is “very grateful to Lord Mayor Christy Burke and to the city counsellors for the honour”, and that he’s accepting the award “to thank them for the work that’s being done for the homeless and people of the city”.
Mr Burke, for his part, said the freedom of the city was the highest civic honour Dublin could bestow and that it was “a privilege” for him to confer that freedom on such a deserving recipient. “I have known Bro. Kevin for many years and have always been inspired by the invaluable work that he carries out each and every day at the Capuchin Centre in the city,” he said.
Receiving the honour in the Round Room of Dublin’s Mansion House, Bro. Kevin said, “I love the work I am doing. My real goal in life is to help those that are in need and I would hope to keep going at that for as long as I can. I feel very honoured and proud to accept the Freedom of the City and it’s a privilege to accept it on behalf of homeless people and people in need.”
It’s been a long journey since the 1950s in County Cork when the young Kevin Crowley was thinking of joining the Capuchins, several times making it as far as the post office with his letter of application only to lose his nerve and return. It was while he was working for CIE in Fermoy in 1958 that he finally posted his letter. Even after applying, he says, “the hesitancy was still there”.
“I was enjoying life, I had lots of friends, and I wondered what their reactions would be,” he explains, while saying that at the same time, he hadn’t felt truly happy: “something was saying I was being selfish and wasn’t answering the Lord’s call.”
Vocation
His vocation, he says, came from the “simple and genuine faith” of his parents, and the “unbelievable love” he experienced from them in his family home. Not that they encouraged let alone forced him towards religious life, he says, but they led by example. “Saturday night,” he says, “was a night of preparation for Sunday Mass, and family prayer was important, without going overboard.”
Within a few years of his profession, Bro. Kevin founded Dublin’s Capuchin Day Centre in 1969. Explaining that the centre has never been an organised fundraiser, Bro. Kevin says that “all monies that are given to the centre go directly to the people, to the poor and the homeless”, whereas he himself takes each day as it comes. “I’m a firm believer in the Good Lord who’s looking down upon us and making sure he’s keeping us alive with food and money.
“Once when we were starting up, we were in need of money – we were short a thousand pounds to pay a bill – and I eventually went and knelt in the oratory and said ‘these people – if you want me to look after them, you had better go and get the money’ and I have never looked back.”
In terms of the problems facing Dublin at the moment, Bro. Kevin says he has three major concerns, starting with drugs. “The drugs scene is huge,” he says, adding that he is “not at all happy with the way needles are distributed and people are shooting up in the street.”
Expressing concerns about children picking up needles in the street and people shooting up in churches, saying that Dublin’s Capuchin Church has installed special lights in the toilets to prevent people shooting up, he says it’s “not appropriate or dignified for needle exchanges to give people needles and then send them away, without providing them with a place to use them. In this day and age,” he adds, “people should have dignity.”
He is concerned too about the fate of children in situations where families have become homeless and children are living in hotel rooms. Appealing to the Government to give them proper accommodation, he points out that hotels have no proper facilities for cooking and aren’t well-placed for children going to school, not least because they’re often far from the children’s schools so the children have to travel long distances.
Housing too, in a more general sense, is a concern for Bro. Kevin, who says “there is not sufficient housing for homeless people and people in need”.
Describing how “a lot has been said and a lot has happened” since homeless man Jonathan Corrie died just metres from Leinster House in early December, he says “a lot of beds were made available but a lot of people are afraid of hostels” such that this alone couldn’t begin to solve the problem.
“People feel frightened,” he says, describing how some people show up at seven o’clock in the morning at the Capuchin Day Centre. “This is not the fault of homeless agencies, he stresses, saying that “numbers of homeless have increased, and there’s still a problem with people not being able to get beds.”
Saying he has “great trust” in Minister Alan Kelly, Bro. Kevin says he is sure he is “sincere and genuine”, and that he hopes and prays he will do all he can so that “people are treated with dignity and respect”.
In the meantime, the Capuchin Day Centre is doing its part, currently feeding about 300 at breakfast and between 560 and 580 at dinner each day. Food parcels are given out on Wednesdays, with the number of parcels having increased dramatically in recent years, Bro. Kevin says. Only a few years ago they were giving out about 400 parcels each week, but last week, for instance, he says “there were about 1,800 food parcels”.
“Nobody should go hungry,” he insists.