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City Hall maps homeless

Salvation Army fears updated census plan is 'repressive' in methods

By Hilda Hoy
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 7th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Train stations such as Hlavní nadraží and their surroundings are known as hot spots for the homeless.
A new City Hall initiative that began by drawing up a map of Prague’s homeless is misguided and “repressive,” one major aid group says.
The Salvation Army, one of the primary nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working with the Czech Republic’s homeless population, worries that City Hall’s strategy, which enlists the police, could mean increased stigma and pressure for the homeless.
“We are now in the process of analyzing this strategy,” says Pavel Ondrák, director of a Salvation Army shelter in Prague 7 and a frequent liaison with the city. “So far, it looks rather repressive.”
Communism kept homelessness strictly in check, but since the 1989 revolution it’s exploded in Prague. Common estimates place today’s homeless population at 5,000–6,000.
Under the leadership of Jiří Janeček, the city councilor responsible for social policy and housing, the city recently conducted a weeklong, unstructured census of Prague’s most hidden, out-of-reach homeless. These are the people who permanently live off the grid, often in squats or outdoors, and don’t seek to stay in shelters or reintegrate into society.
That information, gathered by district town hall employees, was diagrammed onto a map given to the police March 2. Because officers know their individual beats better than town hall clerks, they will be able to update it with more accurate data, Janeček says.
The data will also be passed on to the Foreigners’ Police, who may be interested in searching for illegal refugees in hiding.
The plan will help reintegrate the homeless back into society, but “our primary aim is to protect Prague’s citizens from these people,” Janeček says. “The homeless person is an invasion into the privacy of Prague citizens’ lives. It is an annoyance.”
A plan for action
The map is just the tip of City Hall’s new plan. Janeček expects to receive updated homeless counts from the police within two weeks, and in about two months the city will conduct a complete census of all Prague’s homeless.
Also in the works is a mobile medical unit, which will be equipped with an X-ray machine that can quickly diagnose tuberculosis, said project coordinator Marcel Stranovský. The unit will also offer basic first aid as well as hepatitis and HIV testing.
This bus will make the rounds to the hot spots on the homeless map. To encourage people to take part, medics will offer about 50–100 Kč ($2.34–4.69) in food stamps to those who seek aid. But, in exchange, the individual may be required to provide personal details and possibly have their picture taken, Stranovský says.
Creating a paper trail will keep the homeless from scamming the system, a tactic Janeček claims is widespread.
The Salvation Army’s Ondrák says this is one of the most troubling aspects of City Hall’s plans.
“Medical checkups are a good idea, but it should be voluntary,” he says. “The pressure is what we fear. Sort of like, ‘You either sign our contract or you will die in the street.’ ”
It is also “inappropriate” for the police to have access to this data, he says. “If that’s the case, we won’t cooperate on this project.”
At Naděje, an NGO that runs shelters across the country, reaction to City Hall was more cautious.
“I don’t feel it’s right to give my opinion about a project that is still in the making,” said Petra Lakatošová, director of Naděje’s Prague branch. “Of course we would like to cooperate. … We welcome the fact that the city wants to develop a strategy of solving the issue of homelessness.”
Hard numbers
The updated census will also show that Prague’s homeless problem is better than most people think, Janeček said.
Homeless who scam the system have artificially inflated the numbers, he added.
“These people have no documents or ID, and they make up stories,” he says. “There are more like 1,000 homeless people, not 6,000, as some misleading data have showed, because one homeless person might have reported [four times].”
The first and last time the city conducted a homeless census was in 2004, when it partnered with various NGOs. Volunteers counted about 3,000 homeless in one night, but organizers admitted those numbers didn’t include the homeless who live out of sight.
Official statistics are not available: The last national census in 2001 made no attempt to count the homeless, the Czech Statistical Office said.
Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Hilda Hoy can be reached at hhoy@praguepost.com


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