It used to be easy enough to find Henryk Piotrowski.
Even in the rough and tumble world of homelessness his days were
carefully measured out in visits to agencies and drop-in centres across
inner-city Dublin.
Breakfasts tended to be at the Mendicity Institute, on a quiet street just off the south quays.
Later
on he would head in the direction of Trust, a nearby drop-in centre,
for a shower or a change of clothes.
Lunch was often across the Liffey
at the Capuchin Day Centre on Bow Street, which provides free dinners.
Much of the rest of the day was spent in a blur of drinking with other
Poles who had fallen on hard times.
“We saw him change a lot over the past two years,” says Alice Leahy,
a founder of Trust, who helped to wash his feet a short time before he
disappeared.
“Like so many others he was often in an awful state. The
light had gone out of his eyes . . . We dressed his feet, which were in a
dreadful state, and he had a cup of tea and a shower. He went on his
way and said thanks.”
Kris Jameczek,
a formerly homeless Pole who is now an outreach worker, remembers
hugging him not long before he disappeared. “We were just talking about
life, about jobs, about cheering each other up. His home life was
complicated,” he says. “I gave him a big hug. He was just a very
friendly guy.”
In better timesPiotrowski had come
to Ireland in search of a new life. There was plenty of work on the
building sites. But when the bottom fell out of the economy the work
vanished.
His English was poor, and he had little or no money. On top of
everything his family life was in disarray. His relationship with his
wife had broken up, and he had lost contact with his daughters.
Support
agencies say they made numerous attempts to persuade him to return. But
going home, he said, simply wasn’t an option. The shame was too great.
Drink was an escape from the misery.
Introspective and quiet
“He was almost permanently drunk . . . There were times when he detoxed. When he was sober he was miserable, introspective and quiet,” says Charles Richards, manager of the Mendicity Institute, one of Dublin’s oldest charities. “I remember saying to him, ‘Henryk, you’re going to die if you keep up this kind of heavy drinking.’ And he said, ‘Charles, I am already dead.’ ”
Last month he lost his bed in a homeless hostel – Frederick Hall
– that had been set aside for homeless migrants. The facility had
provided a stable bed for the previous year or more, although there were
times when he didn’t use it at all. He, along with more than a dozen
other migrants, was left to use an emergency phone number for
accommodation to organise a bed on a nightly basis.
Then
he disappeared. He was no longer to be found in any of the agencies or
drop-in centres where he had become a familiar face. Just over a week
ago came shocking news. He had been found crushed to death in a
commercial waste pick-up truck. He had been sleeping in an
industrial-sized bin in the south inner city.
The circumstances of Piotrowski’s death were
shocking for a country that prides itself on its compassion for the less
well-off at home and abroad. It has also raised urgent questions about
the kind of support available for Ireland’s migrant homeless population
and whether enough is being done to support them at a time of cutbacks
to vital social safety nets.
“Homeless services
are especially poor for foreign nationals,” says Fr Peter McVerry, the
homelessness campaigner. “The Irish can get a bed for six months in a
hostel, and it brings them at least some stability. But the non-Irish
can only get a hostel bed for one night at a time.”
Neither
Poland nor Ireland ever predicted the scale of the rush to work here in
2004, when borders were opened to accession-state members. Hundreds of
thousands came to chase the Celtic Tiger dream. And for most it
delivered on its promise of well-paid work.
But a small number who came without money,
contacts or basic English had a different experience. For them no job
was waiting. Later, when so many temporary jobs on building sites ended
abruptly, there was no accommodation or support system for them.
Once on
the street or in homeless shelters they found themselves in another
trap: accession-country members have no right to public funds, which
meant they could not claim welfare benefits or get long-term beds in
publicly funded hostels.
Today it’s estimated
that anywhere between 15 and 20 per cent of Dublin’s homeless population
on the street are migrants from eastern Europe.
Welfare entitlements
Tackling the issue of migrants is complex. Any relaxation of rules over entitlement to welfare benefits for foreign nationals could make Ireland a “haven” for destitute foreigners, says one policymaker who declines to be named.
The State’s policy towards migrant
homeless has been, wherever possible, to repatriate them.
In the first
five months of this year 153 foreign nationals were flown back to their
countries of origin after seeking help from the Reception and
Integration Agency to go home on destitution grounds.
That compares with
97 in the same period last year.
Although some
have voiced concern that the policy is simply dumping the problem
elsewhere, staff and volunteers at the Mendicity Institute see it as a
progressive solution, if done properly.
The idea
of repatriation is nothing new. When the Mendicity Institute was
established, in 1818, there were an estimated 6,000 beggars on the
streets. As part of a policy of “transmission” in the early 19th
century, about 3,000 were given funds to go abroad or to parts of the
country where they had been guaranteed a job. Another 3,000 were given
work and shelter.
Over the past 18 months,
Charles Richards says, the institute has been working closely with a
Polish outreach team – Barka – to help repatriate those who wish to
return home.
“It is all done on a voluntary basis,” he says. “If people
are interested in engaging, it’s up to them. No one is pressurised. They
can leave any time. We’ve helped to move 100 people out of homelessness
and connected them back home or into training or work.”
It’s
also cost effective, he says. The programme has cost about €200,000 in
its entirety, yet a single hostel bed can cost anything up to €20,000 a
year, not to mind support services.
Kris Jameczek, the former homeless man turned
outreach worker, is one of those who chose to return home to Poland. He
had been working on building sites in London before he lost his job and
found himself sleeping in a park. In all he spent six years on the
street.
“There was so much expectation at home,”
he says. “I felt like a failure. I could not go back to my family. But
there was also freedom on the streets. I drank every day. There was
nothing else to do. The longer I was on the street the more it felt like
normality.”
It took years of gentle persuasion
from the Barka team in London before he decided to go home. When he got
back he joined a group-living scheme, received addiction counselling and
found basic work.
“I’m trying to help others,” says Jameczek,
who is now 58. “It can still be difficult. I hope my relations with my
family improve. I’m an optimist. That’s why I’m doing this.”
Alice
Leahy, the cofounder of Trust, says repatriation may be the answer for
some. But for many the system’s reliance on paperwork and invasive
questioning is a turn-off.
“In all the years
we’ve been operating, the system hasn’t progressed all that much. It
still lacks basic compassion and understanding of how the real world
operates,” she says. “We’ve seen people who’ve been repatriated and then
arrived back here months later . . . There are often unrealistic
expectations, or a rush to push people into accommodation, without the
right kind of support.”
Leahy says the fact that
migrants are able to access only a single night’s accommodation is just
adding to the sense of isolation among the most marginalised of our
homeless population.
“It’s not good enough to have to ring up every
night for a bed,” she says. “There are just too many rules and
regulations. It’s no surprise then that people won’t link in with
services.”
Supporting migrants
There is no obvious best way of supporting migrants. Even those who provide homeless services are divided. There’s little doubt that Henryk Piotrowski posed complex challenges for homeless-support agencies. No shortage of help was available to him over the course of his life.
Groups
such as the Mendicity Institute take grave issue with the notion that
he or other migrants are being let down by the system.
“We did
everything we could to support him: food, medical care, counselling,
accommodation options. But he was a chaotic alcoholic, and his family
life was in disarray,” Richards says. “He was estranged from family. We
contacted his brothers, but he wouldn’t engage with them. We located his
daughters on Facebook. He could see they were healthy and surrounded by
friends – but Henryk felt there was no way back to his family.”
Richards
believes that Piotrowski was on the road to oblivion and that nothing
was going to stop it.
“Once, we had a passport, flight, he was off drink
for two days, there were new clothes, he was all ready to go. He never
turned up . . . I don’t think anything would have saved him.”