Holidays and homeless people

The morning after New Year's night, fog and smog everywhere. It is raining constantly, the sky is not visible. Passers-by are returning from the reception, the streets of Belgrade echo Turkish, Italian, and sometimes French. Near Knez Mihailova Street, a few hundred meters down in the underground hall, several people in old sleeping bags, pressed against the wall, trying to fall asleep. Who knows how many nights they spent in that passage. Maybe they celebrated the New Year there. The next day - the same picture, with one more person there. An elderly woman in a purple jacket, with clear blue eyes. The sweet face, gray hair peeking out from under the cap and soft voice make it hard to guess her age. At first she refuses to talk and repeats that she does not need help.

"I don't like to talk. My life and what I have been through is better not to be heard", she says and her eyes fill with tears. He's been in that passage for three nights already. It was better when the bus station was near the Sava Bridge. The nights were warmer and safer there. "Wherever I go, I try to make friends with people, I see who is sure that they can store things for me. It happened, of course, that I was stolen, usually by women because I asked them to keep them for me", she explains and points to the things she has attached to her. She adds that she had another backpack with documents in it, but it was stolen from her at the bus station. He is currently eating in a soup kitchen, he says that there is food, but the problem is the cold and a roof over his head.

"It's better to be hungry, but in a warm place. This is how a person is constantly afraid of getting sick. The concrete is cold, it drags, and I don't have a booklet." She adjusts her cap and bag and continues in tears: "I tried to get the document out, but I couldn't, it's too complicated." She explains that she is originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, that the institutions walked her back and forth, and that in the end they told her at the BiH embassy that she had to go to the place where she was born and take out all the documents there again. Of course, she doesn't have the ability to do such a thing. If she gets sick or something worse happens, she is invisible to the system. Apart from the fact that there is no way for her to go to BiH, there is no one to wait for her there. She was married, however, when the "last war" started, she fled to Serbia, and her husband to Italy. "I don't even know if he's alive," she says and adds that she wouldn't even ask him for help. He has no children of his own. She used to suffer terribly because of it, and since she's been on the street, she thinks it's a good thing they're gone.

"And who can I ask for help, who can help me with documents and a roof over my head", he shrugs. She tried to look for a place to stay in the shelter at Autokomanda, but there was no room. "There is food and water, I need those four walls. It's easy now that it's not such a minus. But when it winters, what will I do? I am here until they drive us out", he says. When asked who can drive them out, he waves his hand: "We're sure to bother someone." He notes that there are all kinds of people, that one must be careful. He takes out rolls from a bag in a worn bag and goes to feed the pigeons. "It calms me down, I like to feed them, it takes my mind off it," he explains. He refuses any help in the form of food and water because he says that there is enough now. She needs, she repeats, a warm room where she could spend the night.

"Your hands are colder than mine", he smiles carefully when greeting. She continues to feed the pigeons, tucked in a sleeping bag, which is more for warm days than for a basket in Belgrade.

PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR HOMES

The exact number of people on the margins of society is not known. From the group "For a roof over your head" they explain that the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics are not complete. They often separate persons in a situation of homelessness into those who are literally on the street and those who have an improvised, but completely unconditional "shelter". In the civil sector, they estimate that there are more than 15.000 homeless people in Serbia; there are about 5.000 homeless people in Belgrade alone. There are different stories about how they lost their day, they all have one thing in common - pain. Some were sent to the battlefields, some defected, some were victims of (mis)adjustment to the market...

"People who remain homeless in our society are victims of transition. Whether they are people who lost their jobs in privatization and therefore could not repay their debts, while at the same time they are owed wages and severance pay, or whether they are former workers who are out of work due to the campaigns of all governments in the past 30 years, tried in entrepreneurship - but those campaigns did not say that the introduction of capitalism means the creation of a monopoly that will leave them in debt and on the street", explains Milena Repajić from the group "For a roof over my head".

The fact that the country is celebrating can be seen from the lighting on the streets, collective vacations and reduced working hours. However, as explained by Ivan Zlatić from the aforementioned organization, "For a Roof Over Your Head" organizes defenses against forced evictions year after year, during the winter and New Year's and Christmas holidays, as well as at any time of the year. According to Article 85 of the Law on housing and maintenance of buildings, it is expressly forbidden to carry out evictions under unfavorable weather conditions, on Sundays, at night and during holidays, and state authorities are obliged to carry out evictions in agreement with the people who are moving out, in a way that will be the least harmful to their rights and interests. However, Zlatić explains that the story with public bailiffs is different. Since the privatization of enforcement proceedings in 2011, people targeted by enforcement officers, whether they are debtors or third parties, have been treated worse than if they were legally convicted criminals.

Refugees, those who came from the battlefield and couldn't manage, forcibly evicted - all of them are neglected by the system and most of the society. They receive help in shelters, when there is room, in soup kitchens, and they are also helped by humanitarian organizations and solidarity citizens.

SOLIDARNOOST, NOT ALMOST ALMOST ALMOST

As Solidarity Kitchen activist Stevan explains, the meals they share during the holidays are richer and they try to spend more time with people who come for food. They organize a monthly event "Solidarity together" where activists prepare food together with people who visit their point, exchange experiences and socialize.

"These events aim to set power relations in a different way, that is, to erase the boundaries between them nose who prepare and share food and people who need a meal. We organize 'Together in solidarity' throughout the year, according to possibilities, and we have just started 2025 with this event", says Stevan.

Solidarity Kitchen is an independent collective that shows solidarity, empathy and humanity towards those who need it the most. Activists of Solidarity Kitchen collect funds, procure, prepare and distribute food themselves.

"The number of those who come to our point for meals on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays is relatively constant, from 150 to 200 and more. During the summer and during the holidays, more people come, because other organizations that prepare food then take breaks or take vacations. We are here all year round and in almost five years of work we have not missed a distribution day because food is a constant need", explains Stevan. He adds that roughly 500 meals a week are distributed at their point. "In Belgrade, according to some information, there are about 7.000 people in a situation of homelessness, while some sources estimate that this number exceeds 20.000. We certainly don't have the capacity to prepare the necessary amounts of food, not counting these and all other vulnerable groups."

The solidarity kitchen faces different challenges. As Stevan says, their slogan is "Solidarity, not alms" and adds that they are facing technical problems such as a lack of activists, delays in transporting groceries due to traffic jams, but also a lack of donations.

"That's why we always insist on the fact that hunger, poverty and homelessness are structural problems that this society produces. A good part of the public sees the act of cooking and distributing food for people in need as a charitable or philanthropic act - for us it is one of the ways to shed light on certain social problems and practice mutual aid, building a system with different relationships," says Stevan.

As Stevan explains, the goal of Solidarity Kitchen is not to become a "service for the hungry", but to point out the need for a different society in which hunger, homelessness, poverty and exploitation are not taken for granted or seen as something acceptable.

By the way, the people who come to them for a meal are of different ages, economic and housing status. He says that they distribute meals to the disabled, single mothers, pensioners with small pensions, people who currently do not have a job or are in a situation of homelessness.

"Anyone can come to our point and get a meal, we don't ask for certificates or documents, nor for anyone to prove that they 'deserved' a meal," concludes Stevan.

photo: pexels / mart production

N. N. LICE, DIED FROM THE COLD

"I went through the sieve and the sieve, I was in the wars of the 1990s, I have a diagnosis - post-war depression", says Boris P. He spends his life, as he says, mostly passing through Zelenjak or Dorćol. We find him talking to a friend, the whole time they are talking about the war. When asked if he has any support, he answers: "ADRA helps me, they supply me with the most necessary things." They are nice and treat us well."

By the way, ADRA (Adventist Development and Humanitarian Work) is a humanitarian and development organization of the Christian Adventist Church. It started its work at the global level in 1956, and in Serbia in 1990, where there are three main programs: the fight against homelessness through the provision of services and influencing policy changes, as well as support in education and employment of the most vulnerable categories and responses to emergency situations. They support about 700 people a month. There are the services of showering, laundry, examination, going through treatment procedures in the system, covering the costs of the same, as well as monitoring recovery, counseling with a social worker, a psychologist...

The existence of humanitarian organizations and shelters is a temporary solution for those who have no other choice. However, not all these organizations can help everyone and in every aspect.

"People who are homeless during the holidays need immediate accommodation, protection from the cold. Their life is usually very complicated, but now, for obvious reasons, it is even worse. Accommodation and continuous support in connection with a number of needs - from hygiene, health, but also support from psychologists, social workers and lawyers in order to find permanent solutions. ADRA and other organizations provide them with this support, but even there the needs are greater than our current capacities", explains the executive director of ADRA Serbia, Igor Mitrović.

As Mitrović points out, ADRA has no way to provide emergency accommodation. That is the job of the state and the business sector. According to their knowledge, in the past few months, more than ten people have lost their lives because admission procedures for emergency shelters are a long and complicated process.

"The shelter can accommodate up to 104 people, and the lodging can be used by 35 people. There remains a huge gap between the needs and what is offered", says Mitrović and adds that it is enough to spend an hour outdoors and the cold already penetrates the bones. Mitrović continues, it is unfathomable to most people what it means to live for weeks, months or years in homelessness, in abandoned buildings where the temperature is only a few degrees higher than outside.

"Health suffers. People are full of fears, there is a lot of uncertainty, anxieties, anxiety and real dangers of violence. The longer a person is in such a state, the more he sinks, and recovery is more complex and uncertain. People survive by finding ways to numb feelings and pain, but that's all knocks in that state. However, the worst possibility is that they simply do not survive the cold. And it is happening before our eyes. People are leaving. They often end up as unknown persons in the Borčan cemetery", says Mitrović.

THE SYSTEM MUST CHANGE

Apart from organizations and the good will of passers-by to help people on the street, it is necessary to change the system. As the interlocutors of "Vremen" emphasize, it is necessary that organizations like theirs are not the only alternative for those who need such help, but that there are also state institutions that have sufficient capacity to provide this type of support.

"Three types of changes are needed," says Mitrović. The first is at the level of attitude and mentality, on which everyone must work. He emphasizes that people in a situation of homelessness are not losers, drunkards and drug addicts who made this happen for themselves and now they should manage as they know how. The key thing to understand is that basically no one chose to be homeless. Thousands of experiences confirm that almost everything starts with a trauma or a series of traumatic experiences that have befallen a person.

"He and she are fighting as best they can, until it overwhelmed them, and there was no support, and they ended up where they are now. Everyone has their own firing point. When it comes to it, and if there is no support from relatives or the state, everyone sinks," explains Mitrović.

The next change they point to is a sense of responsibility, where the state, as well as society, must not "play silly", as if these people do not exist. Also, it is important that the state recognizes the problem of poverty in its laws. Homelessness is the worst form of poverty and social deprivation, but until now, in documents concerning social protection, this term has not been mentioned.

"This year, we have the opportunity to finally find homelessness in the planning documents of the state, and then in those of local self-governments," he says, adding that the new Social Protection Strategy should be completed in April. "We are doing everything in our power to change that. Someone will say "it will only be paper", but we have to have it. Therein lies the hope that the prevention of homelessness will be taken seriously and adequately responded to. I'm not naive. It's about having hope and believing in miracles, maybe not because they happen easily, but because they are necessary," concludes Mitrović.

"Christmas miracle", the Christmas miracle in American films, maybe Serbia needs it too. Surely more awareness is needed about the problems of the most vulnerable. Isolated in the worlds we build for ourselves and around us, we forget that we can find ourselves in other people's shoes. But it's not about that either - that we can be in someone else's place - but about someone sleeping on cardboard, covered with a blanket so thin that it curls up against the wall, that someone is hungry and can't get to the doctor, that sick and lost, that he didn't get support when he needed it and that he doesn't have it even today. And the system blinks. We also turn a blind eye as long as we allow the system to fail pull out with that, as long as we don't try with all our might to change the society in which there are invisible people.