The warm days are growing shorter, and we come to appreciate them more. If we can, we ditch the library to enjoy those sunny hours for a jog in the park or even a bike ride out of the city. We think about the cold days, when we hurry through the icy wind, pulling up our scarves and big coats and are happy to reach a cozy home and a warm cup of tea. In our hurry, we often fail to notice those who have to make do with the bare minimum to reach at least a certain level of warmth: with a blanket, if they are lucky, or in an underground station, cardboard paper protecting them from the cold stone ground. No matter how fast we hurry by, most of us feel empathy for the homeless. Only in exceptional cases did they choose this merciless life, one that is deadly for many of them in the winter. Unfortunately, a spot in a shelter is rare, and a night there does not bring them more security than surviving on the streets. Violence and theft are common threats in these spaces. In the eyes of the country's high officials, nevertheless, these people are a disgrace to our beautiful Budapest. Polluting the image of a cultured city, they should be banned from public places that are part of the UNESCO world heritage. After a law of November 2011, in the whole country homeless people could be fined for living on these and any other places that were designated as “protected” by the local entities. A year later, the Constitutional Court, ruled it unconstitutional, stating that “homelessness is a social problem” and therefore the state should not counteract it with criminalization but rather use social measures.
Fortunately, for the governing two-third majority this was not a problem for long. In March of this year, the Constitution was again modified, so to include the possibility to penalize homelessness. Now, the aim could be reached: the Court's ruling is irrelevant and the law could be passed anew!
On September 30th, 240 parliamentarians voted for the criminalization of homeless people in these designated “public” spaces, making it illegal for them to even live in home-built shelters. The first three times they can be fined for money or community service, after that they face three months in prison. It is debatable, if there is a point to such measures. A suggested alternative is for local authorities to provide more shelter spaces, which would be cheaper than incarceration. In Budapest alone, humanitarian organizations estimate 8-10,000 people living without a home.
However, a scarcity of heated spaces is not a problem, according to the Minister of the Interior's under-secretary. In his opinion “today, Hungary has more heated shelter spaces available than there are homeless.” The government has taken the necessary steps to prepare for the winter, therefore the homeless are to penalize if they miss out on these presumed possibilities. Yet, many organizations argue that this is not the whole story. Findings show that every major city in Hungary is not only missing shelter spaces for their homeless, but other necessities like kitchens are not met either.
The group “A Város Mindenkié” (The City belongs to Everyone, AVM) dedicated to the cause of the homeless, and several other groups of the civil society, have organized demonstrations. TASZ, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, has written an open letter to Sándor Pintér, the Minister of the Interior, together with eight other organizations, to withdraw his legal proposal, but with no success. Next Saturday (Oct. 19th), AVM will organize a “Walk of Empty Apartments” starting from Deák tér at 2 p.m. The aim is to show at least one available solution to the problem – by making use of the many empty apartments all around the city.
An effective solution would not further marginalize people who are already excluded from many services, because they don't have a home or a job. A study led by Policy Solutions shows that the majority of the population in all age groups actually agrees that criminalization is not the correct way. But for now, the focus remains on the aesthetics of the city rather than solving a societal problem through social measures.
Judith Langowski, Gender Studies, Germany/Hungary
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