2023-11-01 18:46:34
It is 8:30 p.m., in front of the reception structure and Didier, educator, filters the entries. Directly inside, volunteers distribute soup and sandwiches to beneficiaries.
This evening, the atmosphere is pretty good. The reason: all the homeless people who showed up were able to be welcomed. Didier’s registration sheet is therefore not complete. “There are still 4 places left for women and 4 for women. But other evenings, it’s very different, where we have to draw lots“, he explains.
A necessary draw, because the night shelter only has 22 places: 16 beds for men, 6 for women. Several times since the shelter opened at the beginning of the month, this saturation has occurred and inevitably, it creates tensions.
Also read Rent indexation, interest rates, “Great Cold Plan”: everything that changes this November 1
“SIf a couple shows up, and there is space only for women, the woman will be able to fit, but not the man“, explains Didier. These tensions are felt by the homeless. Faces hidden, they explain to us what they are experiencing: a daily uncertainty of not being welcomed here. “We are bowling balls, we are drawn like a game of chance, it makes you feel guilty, it is not right“, notes a lady.
Because the homeless population is growing. Over the 8 months it has been open, Hélène, director of the Arlon night shelter, has seen 240 different people pass through here and her shelter has already been saturated in the past, but never so early in the year: a consequence health and economic crises.
“People have lost their homes, and more people might arrive: we are not yet in the depths of winter with negative temperatures“, she explains. Here, many regret the lack of resources, places and reception structures. “Millions of works are organized for parking lots… When we see that, we say to ourselves that the mayor should get moving“, notes a homeless person.
Also read The “Great Cold Plan” activated in Wallonia from Wednesday: this is what the millions of euros planned to help the homeless will be used for
Rather, our RTL info team met the mayor of this city. For him, the problem is that Arlon is the only municipality to have a night shelter in the province of Luxembourg. There is therefore a concentration of homeless people here. “When you have more homeless people in town, this leads to an unpleasant phenomenon for them and for others. We cannot be the only ones in the region to deal with this problem.“, denounces Vincent Magnus, mayor of Arlon.
According to our information: 3.6 million euros will be released by the Walloon region to increase the reception of existing night shelters, but also to create new ones, perhaps in the province of Luxembourg, where the need is glaring .
grand format
1698872852
#Due #lack #space #night #shelter #Arlon #draw #decide #roof #heads #guiltinducing
