Crowdfunding helps homeless woman with dementia return to Lithuania

A woman in her eighties with dementia has been able to return to Lithuania with crowdfunding money raised by the general public on GoFundMe.

In July, there was a public outcry as 87-year-old Irena and her son Darius Nenius, were forced to sleep rough in Birmingham for several nights next to a rat-infested canal.

Eventually, over £1500 was raised by crowdfunding which allowed the mother and son to fly to Lithuania to stay with estranged relatives, who only found out about how bad things had become through stories in the media.

Council knew they were being evicted ‘but no help was forthcoming’

Raj Rana, director of charity ‘Let’s Feed Brum’ found Irena and Darius Nenius whilst volunteering one night. A series of unfortunate events had resulted in their homelessness.

Mr Rana says: “Darius explained to The Birmingham Mail how his mother had dementia, how he has an allocated social worker, but they were unresponsive. He had been trying to meet this social worker because he knew he was going to be evicted, but he didn’t know it was going to happen this quickly.”

Darius had fallen on bad times after being illegally evicted from his rented home. He’d got behind with his rent after he left his job to care for his mother.

Irena was from Lithuania and had no one else to care for her.

Mr Rana was surprised at how Birmingham City Council had known about the situation and how they hadn’t intervened to prevent it from happening. He says: “The council knew at this point they were going to be evicted illegally; they knew his mother had dementia, but no help was forthcoming”.

The charity worker put the pair up in the Britannia Hotel – the only hotel that would accept them - at his own cost, whilst he contacted a long list of sheltered housing providers. No one was able to help, even though they wanted to, as there were no beds available throughout Birmingham.

Mr Rana found the council’s response to an elderly woman living on the streets incomprehensible. He said: "There was the social worker who wasn’t being very supportive to them, until their plight was publicised in the Birmingham Mail, and the council should never have let this happen in the first place as far as I’m concerned."

However, in a statement from Birmingham City Council, a spokesperson said: "This has been a complex case that has spanned several years. At every step, support has been offered to both Mr Nenius and Mrs Neniuviene, including offers of accommodation, however, help has not been accepted."

I do need food, but I don’t want to leave my mum’

Mr Rana discovered Irena and Darius one evening whilst he was organising the team of volunteers that go on the ‘walkabouts’ to find homeless people, who for whatever reason, don’t want to get in the queue for food.

“In between the base operation and going on walkabouts, I noticed a very frail elderly lady and what looked like her son. They were obviously in a destitute state but were not in the queue for food. I hadn’t seen them before, you get to know the regulars, so I approached them and said do you know what we do?”

Darius explained to Mr Rana that he knew about the queue for food and “that he did need food, but he didn’t want to leave his mum. She was too scared to be left, even though it was a short distance.”

They were about 50 feet away from the queue, but his mother was too frail to walk that far, and she was too scared for him to go alone as she had dementia.They had spent several nights by the side of a canal where there were rats and heavy drug users.

The son didn’t strike Mr Rana as being unusual as they feed up to 200 people in Birmingham a night, and they often see men in their forties, but seeing an elderly woman was extremely rare. He said: “The lady seemed 90-plus, frail, and my initial questioning was ‘where are you staying, are you in a shelter? Tell me your story’.”

“I’ve seen homeless people in their seventies before a couple of times, but never this age before, which is what really shocked us”.

Having some money ‘did wonders for his self-esteem’

Mr Rana then took to the Facebook page of The Birmingham Mail, who picked up on the story and joined forces with him to bring the plight of Irena and Darius to the attention of local readers, who were genuinely moved by the story. The ripples of the story soon reverberated throughout the wider press.

The unusual story of Darius and Irena soon reached their extended family in Lithuania, who in turn, contacted Mr Rana.

He said: “The family from Lithuania then contacted us and said, ‘look we actually recognise these people, we’re extended family, we didn’t realise they were in this situation, we didn’t realise things were so bad. If they are able to get back to Lithuania, we are happy to look after them’.”

Mr Rana then put the relatives in touch with each other, set up a funding page, and contacted the local press to make sure people in Birmingham were aware of the story and the need for the flights to be paid.

He described the support from people in Birmingham as ‘overwhelming’, saying: “We thought we’d raise a few hundred pounds, but it turned out we raised £1500 within 48 hours, which was far more than we needed for the flights, so we purchased tickets for them back to Lithuania, we contacted the family and explained what time they would be arriving.”

Any money that was left over, the charity converted into cash for Darius to give him confidence in his new start in life back in Lithuania. Mr Rana says: “It would have been horrible for Darius to arrive in Lithuania without a penny to his name, and this is exactly what would have happened if he didn’t have this money.”

Mr Rana has been in touch with the pair since their arrival back in Lithuania and says they are doing well, adding: “The money has done wonders for Darius' self-esteem”.