WHO WANTS A NEW NEIGHBOUR -
LIVING ON THE BACK STAIRS
30. September 2008 Link til artiklen i Arbejderen 30.sept 2008
By Tine
Student at
Volunteer at 'Street Space' (Gaderummet)
The judgment has fallen. The youths are to be
thrown onto the streets.
Gaderummet
- a socio-psychological live-in and treatment center for homeless youths - is
to be closed after more than a year of negotiations with
The youths
can choose between a new institution, that limits user influence and degrades
Gaderummet's intensive psychological help to a more symbolic counseling funded
by psychiatry. This replaces a 24/7 access to help with far more restrictive
opening hours, or perhaps the only free space available: the street.
Most of the
youths will choose the latter, because the limitations of the new services will
reduce their practical choices and the rights to mental and physical freedom.
As a
volunteer at Gaderummet, I have followed the closing of the place from the
inside and I have heard what the youths have to say about this new institution.
They are very concerned.
COMMUNITY
The
residents and users of Gaderummet are all youths with social and psychological
problems such that no other institution has been able to embrace, help or even
comprehend.
These
youths have histories at various other institutions. Places they have left
voluntarily or been thrown out of. At Gaderummet, they have managed to find
some breathing space and a sense of community.
A community
that has not been formed on the principles of a omnipotent leadership with
unbending standards or right and wrong, but rather on the principles of the
youths themselves sharing their opinions in dialogue - both on an every-day
basis and during the weekly Sunday Meetings, where the youths are part of the
decision making process concerning the residence.
Where do
you go if that only alternative offered is the public space of the streets?
Now
Gaderummet will be shut down. Or perhaps it will be replace by an alternative,
where direct user democracy will be replaced by a leadership, which will allow
the youths influence - if these leaders choose to.
Not only
will these youths be ejected from a building that has created the frameworks of
a home, they will also lose the right to self-determination in their own lives.
And therefore, many of them will feel forced to choose the street.
The
temperature is already falling, autumn is upon us and soon winter will catch up
to these youths, and they will look for somewhere to stay. The public space in
RAW REALITY
Closing
Gaderummet not only means the horrible act of taking the youths home away from
them, it also has a social effect. It also effects you and I Do you want to be
the next one to throw a homeless person out?
This is not
just the worst possible scenario - it is also a raw reality: If these youths
are sent out into the public space, there is no limitation to where they stay.
They will find their way indoors. And maybe your front entrance will be the
next place they choose to spend the night.
Who wants a
society where the political responsibility for welfare is passed along to
individual citizens in a case where the futures of these youths are in
jeopardy? How can we work to improve the integration of the weakest groups into
society, if we no longer know where to find them?
How will
the public receive these new homeless people? Do you want a new neighbor living
in your back stairs?
(Translated by P. Englar)