Künstler: Miklós Erhardt & Dominic Hislop (Budapest)
Presented work: The Inside Out project was initiated and organized by artists Dominic Hislop and Miklós Erhardt, in 1997-98 – almost exactly ten years ago. The photograph on the poster was made by Ferenc Budai, one of the participants of the project, in June 1997.
Text by Miklós Vecsei (Vice-president of the Hungarian Malteser Charity Service, Budapest)
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Notes on a Law Modification
On October 15th, 2007, the Hungarian parliament accepted the suggestion of a deputy to modify the law in order to allow the legal accommodation of homeless persons in tents. The deputy wanted to help; the ministerial commissioner of homeless affairs has resigned.
The problem is not the tent but the ”right” to it. As street social workers we also use tents, blankets, sleeping bags, diapers, plastic sheets even cigarettes and alcohol – anything that reduces suffering in extreme situations. The question really is whether in the first decade of the 21st century a social law should deal with the problem in this way.
In the past years people noticed that many politicians, especially municipal ones, regarded homelessness as being a public hygiene problem, just like littering, dog dirt or anything else that disturbs the aesthetic harmony of the city. Most efforts were concerned with making the problem invisible and not with solving it. Ordinances appeared one after the other regulating begging in public spaces, feverishly endeavoring to satisfy society’s tireless, if understandable, urge for order. When we manage to repel such attacks – asserting the right of the homeless to reside, for example, in underpasses –, we regard it as a success. But it leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Over the last twenty years homelessness has become part of everyday life. The number of people on the streets might not have increased but the threshold of tolerance has lowered and that makes it that society tends to behave as a judge in front of them. But book-keeping is not helping. Homelessness is a social disease – rather than be put in a tent, homeless people need an accurate diagnosis: how acute or chronic their state is and what the appropriate treatment would be. In case of a disease the person’s right to recovery is the only right that makes sense. All the remarkable results achieved by professionals working with the homeless are in vain without the active support of lawmakers and society.
In the last years, call-centers, street services, crisis vans, food and tea distribution and 24-hour health centers showed a comprehensive societal engagement while a subsidized social housing project offering a solution to more than 1000 people used society itself as a basis for rehabilitation – the issue of accommodation in tents has confused the situation. On top of it, the above modification of the law was taking place when the experts, in the frame of a new strategy, were beginning to discuss the question of how long society can look on hundreds of homeless falling victim to winter. Can their ”right” to perish from cold be overwritten by the right of professionals to intervene? Can a positive zero-tolerance exist? If we have no easy answers, we must continue the discussion. Here, any reductive solution abusing the notion of rights does more harm than good.
Miklós Vecsei
Vice-president of the Hungarian Malteser Charity Service
former Ministerial Commissioner of Homeless Affairs