In the heart of Brussels, merely a stone’s throw away from the registration centre for asylum seekers, a mother and her toddler sit on a piece of cardboard on the pavement. Yousef*, the 40-year-old patriarch of the family, shares details of their journey from Palestine to their recent arrival in Belgium.
The area around the Fedasil reception centre, the first checkpoint for asylum seekers seeking international protection, has for countless months stood as a stark portrayal of Belgium’s inability to manage an influx in arrivals. Much like Mount Street in Dublin, a sprawling mass of makeshift tents from homeless asylum seekers has ammassed before the establishment. Now, it’s commonplace for law enforcement officials to discard these dwellings each morning.
Yousef recounts being passed between two locations, and then being informed of his tardiness to register that day. A notice hung prominently on the former barracks’ gates advises closure for a few days. “I have a child, if I am alone, I can endure living on the street, that’s not an issue, but with the presence of my child, we should be offered assistance,” he states.
“I am astounded today, this isn’t about human rights, I have to live on the streets with my child,” he expresses. Yousef plans to contact a friend residing a two hour journey from Brussels to provide temporary shelter for his family until they can register at the arrival centre when it reopens.
Brussels, akin to Dublin and Paris, often becomes a point of reference when discussing the increasing incidence of homeless asylum seekers in EU countries, especially males. In August of the previous year, Nicole de Moor, the Secretary of State for Asylum in Belgium, announced that accommodation would no longer be provided for single male asylum seekers as the system was inundated. This decision has led to a struggle for thousands of asylum seekers for the limited space in homeless shelters, forcing them to sleep in rough doorways, unsheltered spaces, or in a cramped environment in neglected buildings.
Vincent Manteca Villanueva, an advocate for homeless individuals spearheading mobile outreach operations through the charity Samusocial, observes that squatting occurrences have hiked twofold in Brussels over recent times. People reside in dwellings devoid of fenestration, with gaping rooftops, excrement littering the ground, and discarded hypodermic syringes. “It’s a distressing reality. An excessive demand is imposed on our services, and it’s impossible to assist everyone,” he articulates. In the previous year, police executed a substantial operation evacuating an extensive squat proximate to the Brussels-North railway station, which housed several hundred individuals. Subsequent medical examinations revealed scabies epidemics and instances of tuberculosis.
As of early April, Belgium struggled with an asylum-seeking populace of 3,801 individuals lacking shelter. An official of Fedasil, the asylum agency, discloses that a few of those displaced persons have secured spots within homeless shelters, although it’s unclear how many. “There is ambiguousness about the current whereabouts of these individuals because the backlog extends back to May 2022,” the spokesperson discloses. He further expresses regret for the prevailing crisis and assured that the agency is dedicated to allocating accommodation to as many people as possible.
Freek Spinnewijn, the lead executive of Feantsa, a collective of European homeless agencies, highlights that inadequate migration strategies in recent times have resulted in homeless policy oversights. “Our organisation’s objective is not to bring a conclusion to the migration crisis; we aim to ensure that migration policy errors don’t exacerbate the homeless situation, which is currently the case,” he discloses. Expectations overwhelm countries in handling the substantial flood of asylum seekers, leading to a considerable percentage seeking shelter in homeless accommodation.
The Feantsa executive retraces his journey, “Two decades ago when I joined Feantsa, migration policies’ impact on homelessness was a southern European issue, particularly in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece. Today, it is a concern for the entire western Europe.” He further points to the eastern part of Europe with the influx of Ukrainian refugees following the Ukraine conflict. He suggests, “The dominant concern in relation to homelessness has now morphed into migration and asylum matters.”
The Belgian government’s approach to tackling homelessness among asylum seekers has been to increase funding for homeless services, thereby increasing available shelter beds, as opposed to resorting to hotels for additional accommodation. This is in contrast to Ireland, where the government preferred to maintain a clear distinction between housing facilities for the homeless and accommodation for asylum seekers. Drawbacks of this policy are visible in the makeshift tent settlements that have sprung up on Dublin’s Mount Street and along the Grand Canal, which house close to 2,000 asylum seekers that the Department of Integration cannot accommodate. The shelters backed by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive do not house this population.
The judicial system has frequently reprimanded Belgian authorities for violating EU law by failing to provide asylum seekers with housing. Spinnewijn comments on this blatant disregard for the rule of law, calling it “quite shocking”.
The Flanders Refugee Council operates a legal advice service held three times a week during the afternoons, near the Fedasil arrival centre. This service typically assists around 50 asylum seekers daily. Helena Laureyns, a member of the council’s helpline team, illustrates the plight of these unaccommodated men who often don’t know how to seek an immigration lawyer.
Laureyns acknowledges that the asylum seekers, many of whom are homeless and lacking social connections, are left to languish for months before they receive state-provided accommodation. Despite the existence of homeless shelters, entry is difficult, and availability is often only for a single night, which discourages those living in squats.
With the Olympics approaching, Paris has been taking measures to clear encampments of homeless asylum seekers — a move viewed as an attempt to hide the problem, rather than solve it. The police have been actively dismantling groups of tents raised under Seine river bridges and replacing them with metal fences in preparation for the Games.
Since the previous year, the French government has been implementing a plan to relocate asylum seekers to towns and cities outside of Paris. They are assured of three weeks temporary accommodation, provided they agree to be transferred.
Certain unique scenarios have emerged wherein refugees choose to temporarily vacate Paris, sheltering in other cities or regions for a trio of weeks before returning to the capital for another relocation opportunity and access to accommodation for another three weeks.
Individuals who decide to stay within the capital’s limits have to persistently scout for alternative rough sleeping spots. Adele Croise, an official from Fédération Solidarité, who heads the refugee policy in France, estimates that one in every five asylum seekers in the country is based in Paris. The city’s number of refugees significantly exceeds its accommodation resources. Distressingly, local emergency shelters are stretched to their maximum capacity. A portion of the street dwellers, even after achieving refugee status, are still forced to sleep rough, which Croise affirms is an enormous failing on part of the French government. “The homelessness scenario has become overwhelmingly difficult to handle,” she asserts.
The strategy of relocating refugees from Paris in the guise of not suffering a homelessness crisis during the summer months of July and August, according to Croise, is a dismal failure. “From what we observe, those who exit Paris seem to return,” she informs. In one instance, a place expecting to receive 50 refugees, indeed, only housed eight who were willing to depart from Paris.
Authorities regularly carry out police raids on refugee camps, causing the camp inhabitants to be perpetually displaced, elaborates Croise. This has raised concerns among those aiding refugees as the regular clampdowns might prompt the refugees to become more elusive, making this susceptible group harder to assist. The French department in charge of asylum policies refrained from commenting on the matter.
Towards the east, numerous European capitals are struggling with the influx of refugees escaping Ukraine post the 2022 Russian incursion.
In Prague, Czech Republic’s capital, there is heightened worry among civil society groups about a growing number of Ukrainian refugees becoming homeless. Among European nations with less than 11 million citizens, the Czech Republic has absorbed an unusually high number of Ukrainians, with figures surpassing 300,000. As per research conducted towards the end of last year, Prague’s homeless services have started identifying a rise in the number of Ukrainian refugees petitioning for assistance.
In July of the previous year, the government enacted a provision limiting the length of stay to 150 days in state-funded housing centres for Ukrainians. This duration is set to be further decreased to 90 days by the upcoming September, conforming to the standards in Ireland. Elena Tulupova, the head of the Agency for Migration and Adaptation, an NGO aiding migrants, expresses major anxieties about the gradual decrease in support.
Signs of increasing number of homeless Ukrainians have been reported by primary services ever since mid-last year. Tulupova envisions a grave deterioration of the circumstances starting from the onset of September. She believes there is an endeavour to convince people to return to Ukraine or consider relocating to other EU nations.
The spokesperson for the ministry of the interior in Czech states that offering emergency shelter to wartime Ukrainian refugees was never meant to be an enduring solution. The ministry assures that measures will be undertaken to prevent homelessness among Ukrainians upon leaving state-sponsored shelters.
During the initial war period, many among the Ukrainian Roma minority were rendered homeless, resorting to sleeping in Prague’s railway stations and parklands, reveals Jan Husák, the foreign affairs director at Romodrom. The Roma advocacy organisation describes delays in providing them housing due to authorities’ suspicion of Roma refugees fleeing Ukraine which they view as an apparent act of unequal treatment. Roma refugees express worry that they would experience similar treatment as state support reduces, leading many to move towards countries like Germany and the Netherlands, or even return to Ukraine.