“You can’t lock someone up at Winter Action”
Each individual who lives on the street has their story. It is too easy to judge them for their situation.
The homeless in Luxembourg
Each individual who lives on the street has their story. It is too easy to judge them for their situation.
It is not an isolated case that homeless people access private garages, passageways or building entrances to seek shelter. According to Marc Crochet, Director General of Caritas, this is a phenomenon that happens every day in Luxembourg.
According to him, it is too easy to say that the accommodation structures are not used. The problems faced by people on the streets are too varied to be reduced to a single level, he added.
Communities are left alone
Marc Crochet emphasizes that this is a nationwide phenomenon. He believes that the municipalities are left alone to deal with the problem of the homeless. He does not mention the city of Luxembourg, because it has better financial possibilities. Other municipalities are overwhelmed by this theme. Homelessness is just one symptom of people falling through the cracks of the social net. It is important not to consider homeless people as a homogeneous group.
Indeed, each person living on the street has a story. Marc Crochet invites people who think Winter Action is a luxury hotel to spend the night. Such a structure is far from being a luxury, precisely. “You have to look at the situation with the eyes of those who are concerned,” says the director general of Caritas.
Consider the phenomenon in a more global way
The reasons why homeless people prefer to stay on the streets are manifold. Some suffering from claustrophobia, other psychological problems. “If we don’t look at individual problems more holistically, we won’t solve them.”
Every living person on the street has a story.
What is missing in social work is collaboration with the health sector. Because often there are not enough therapy places available.
Social workers often have their hands tied, because even when weaning has been successful, it has failed due to lack of space in therapy. Drug use is not the main cause why people end up on the street. But that’s a side effect of homelessness. Typically, these people have a social problem and then develop an addiction. Their mental health is out of balance. In this case, even a bed does not solve the problem of these people. Nor weaning alone.
“What exactly do you need?” »
“The problem of homelessness is very complex and is frequently the subject of simplistic comments. Let them work. If they worked, they would have housing and they wouldn’t be on the street. So they stop getting high. Everyone always knows best.
But helping the homeless doesn’t start by saying: I know what you need. But asking: what do you really need? “We live in a society where compassion has a negative connotation. Yet compassion involves feeling and suffering with the other person.
Luxembourg’s “toolbox policy”
In this context, the health sector cooperates only partially with the social work sector. “In Luxembourg, we have a case-to-check policy. How do you expect us to come up with a coherent offer?”
The problem of the homeless concerns both sectors, likely to be added to a communal dimension. In this context, the different sectors should make them work together. “Social workers need help from the health sector to be able to better help people on the street,” explains the director general, well aware that the latter has also been weakened since the pandemic.
However, a new opportunity is on the horizon. Marc Crochet hopes that new instruments will be considered during the change of government in order to reach out to the poorest and weakest in society. Marc Crochet, however, does not know whether the homelessness figure tops the list of priorities. According to the Lisbon Treaty, no one should be on the streets by 2030. “A utopia”.
Many paths lead to the homeless
There are simply too many paths that lead to homelessness. Financial situation, natural disasters, pandemics and war are just some of the reasons. “We designed people on the streets 365 days a year. And there are now more ways to get into the street than to get out of it. Alcohol and other substances intended to anesthetize reality end up becoming part of everyday life.
We then find ourselves fairly quickly in supply crime and then the market deepens. At the same time, society’s judgment of these people hardens. According to Marc Crochet, the police are clearly responsible for the drug problem. For him, the latter does not fulfill its mission.
If the illegality of drugs is no longer treated as such, the threshold of inhibition to drug consumption is lowered. “We have become numb as a society. The police dismiss the problem out of hand, while social workers need to explain to people the consequences they may face for their actions”.
“As a society, we need to understand that these people are not just lazy, but often need help.”
While more accommodation options will help, homelessness will never completely go away. There will always be people who will not use these structures. “You cannot remove a person from the public space against their will and then lock them up in Winter Action”. There are also people who wish to continue consuming and who can do so undisturbed in an isolated cellar. This is why many people who use, especially hard drugs, would never go to Action Hiver.
The number of beds in Luxembourg is currently sufficient. Currently, 307 different sleeping places are available in the structures of the capital and Esch-sur-Alzette. The people we see on the street right now aren’t there because there aren’t enough beds. But because the problem of homelessness is much more complex.
This article was originally published on the website of Luxembourg must
(Translation: Simon Martin)
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