Homeless people
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When the President was elected, he took the cause of homeless people and some show off initiatives of the municipality were publicized on TV. One of the fancy ideas was to make available urban lockers for homeless to keep their few belongings.
For a period of time homeless people news were broadcasted, but as usual massmedia needs to feed novelty and after a while the theme dropped dead.
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Instead, one repeated and exhausted subject seems to feed everyday newspapers and TV programs - football, an alienated and corrupted sport, not to mention the obscene salaries of star players. Why does society value so much a guy who kicks a ball?
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Last Winter, the President appeared again in the streets in support of the homeless, for fear of low temperatures, raising awareness for the municipal pavillion that provides bath, shelter and hot meals.
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Homeless people dislike these support centres, claiming they are overcrowded, with no privacy, and where they get robbed. So they prefer open air, waiting for the vans with meals that drive around the usual spots where they gather. Some would like to have a room of their own, but have no money .
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In some cases, they were thrown out of their apartments for reasons of unemployment, so what they need is a job to provide for basic needs. In other cases, people became alcoholics or drug addicts, needing medical treatment.
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Everyday in the morning, I walk from the car parking to the office by the docks of Lisbon, and I usually see two or three homeless people, men folding their sleeping bags, under the arcades of the old warehouses, now transformed into offices.
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For some years I have watched one of those homeless men , guiding drivers to park their cars, a useless activity, but nontheless much disputed among these guys. Instead of begging, they pretend to provide a service to the community.
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In this case, it was heartbreaking watching the physical decay of this person, getting his back curved and with a limping leg, until he vanished from the area. I wonder if he died…
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Then, for a short period of time, I passed by another homeless fellow who was sleeping under the same arcades , but this one had a bycicle and a trailer, and two dogs. In one of the days I saw him mistreating the dogs, that seemed quite frightened. On that ocasion, it came to my mind that character in Camus novel The Stranger, who owned an old dog that suffered from mange, who frequently cursed at and beat his pet, but after it died, he wept and longed for its return.
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Once, one of these homeless people adressed me asking for a coin to eat something. I proposed to pay him breakfast in the nearby coffeeshop. I sat with him and he spoke about his life.
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«Since when are living in the street?», I asked.
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«I left home when I was 16, and I’m now 43. I had a big family with 11 brothers and sisters and lived in a small village.», he said.
«What did your parents do?» I asked
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«We worked in agriculture, in other people’s farms. Practically we worked for food, and with no abundance. It was slavery. Our only luxury was to buy a tobacco pack and smoke it to the end. At home we were beaten.», he told.
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«When you arrived in Lisbon, did you have any family here?» I asked.
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«No, I found work at a construction site. One day I tried heroin with a work fellow and got addicted for 20 years. My boss would take us in the van and would stop for a while to see if we cured the hangover, to start working again. My life is a horror story. What can I tell you more?» he confessed with dismay.
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I wished him luck and said goodbuy, not to get too late for work.
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These sad life stories are common among homeless people.
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João watched his best friend to drown when he was 9 years old. His mother was victim of domestic violence, his father beat her frequently and she continues to endure it up till today. He left home and never spoke again to his father. She keeps calling him, to maintain contact. In the meantime, he got addicted to drugs and it became hard to keep his job. He decided to stop consuming and started a healing detox in a therapeutic community, but left too early thinking he was free from drugs. A few months later he would get back to the same addiction. Six years ago, he attempted a new cure and was successful. Now he thinks this is for good, because he watches old friends injecting themselves and he feels not tempted. He has ups and downs, he assumes the depression his doctor diagnosed. Unstable but clean, he got a new job. He paid for a room. When work started to fail, with no income he could no longer afford it and five months ago ended up in the streets.
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Luís got a vacancy at one of the nine night shelters in Lisbon, to cover almost 2000 homeless people, but statistics are not reliable, since only the ones living in the street are counted, not including those in shelters or those who are not on sight.
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Alberto is 58 years old, he married when he was 22. He was a professional basketball player and worked at the military plant, producing ammunition. Around his thirties his basketball career ended and his life changed. In spite of his married life and his small son, he engaged in nightlife and alcohol. And drugs happened. «I was in the right path and suddenly got entrapped in this vice», he regretted. He would stop 15 years later. When the ammunition plant closed, he got a compensation subsidy. After that, he could not find a job, at his age. Separation from his wife and son was inevitable. Then he could not afford the alimony established by the court. Without work and addicted to drugs, he ended up in the streets. He found support in one of the homeless shelters. He enrolled in a ceramic course with an internship in Museu do Azulejo, and while it lasted he was able to pay for a room. Then he participated in another project to get a job as shoeblack in a big coffeeshop, but the income was short to pay for a room and remained in the shelter. « One moment a person has a family and then drugs takes our life away. I realize how quickly I fell. I was 30, no longer a kid. On my mother's funeral day I was being tried for robbery, for stealing a purse to buy drugs. Never had done that. I was so bad at it, that five cops fell on me. My family never forgave me and I understand it. I'm paying for my mistakes. ", he reflected on his life.
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José was born in Cabo Verde but has portuguese nationality since his youth. He had a good job for 20 years, operating a crane, but with the economic crisis, construction decrease and very precarious work , he could no longer pay the bank his house debt, which led to foreclosure. Then he ended up in the streets, next in the airport seats and finally got a vacancy in a shelter.
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Other homeless cases are related to severe mental diseases, like the case of the man who settled on the balcony of an empty building nearby my office, and uses it as a tribune to shout loud uninterrupted curses to a fictitious audience. A derranged person that needed mental health care and lives in his isolated angry world. He probably does not bathe for years and people get scared and stay away from him.
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The country followed the WHO recommendations for decentralization of services and deinstitutionalization, closure of large psychiatric hospitals and creation of proximity services, but for some the support seems very distant. This person is certainly not medically followed, with a resisting throat, shouting so loud and continuously. Extreme situations require exceptional support. Inclusion is not dropping dependent people in the streets and let them free of care.