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General
In Belgium, welfare is a regional responsibility, while
justice is a federal responsibility. The federal government is responsible for
the tracing and deportation of undocumented migrants, while the regional
governments are responsible for housing. Although help to undocumented people
isn’t punishable by law (unlike in Germany and France) and local ministers and
governments are often sensitive to their problems, the means to assist them are
lacking due to the refusal of support from the national government.
It
has been estimated that 16% of the homeless that stay in shelters in Flanders
are migrants. Like in The Netherlands, as long as a person is legally in the
country and without an income, the social welfare system will partially finance
a person’s stay in a shelter. People in the asylum procedure access shelters
more easily than people with no legal status at all because they may be allowed
to stay in Belgium. A shelter usually receives no subsidies for undocumented
migrants and thus taking them in depends on their own will and financial
situation. In 2000 the Steunpunt
Algemeenwelzijnswerk, a support organization for welfare centers in
Flanders, did an investigation among homeless organizations in the whole of
Flanders. It calculated that if all the people who ask shelters for support were
helped, 10% of the people in homeless shelters would be undocumented. Only about
1/6 of this 10% is helped, and usually very temporarily (for a night or two).
Homeless
vs houseless
However,
as Danny Lescrauwaet from the above-mentioned organization affirms, shelters are
no long-term solution because they don’t provide any parallel long-term help.
Indeed this is an added reason why shelters have a tendency to refuse
undocumented people and send them to other places. Eric Wynants from Point
d’Appui, an organization in Liège (in the Walloon Region) dedicated to
helping solely undocumented people, says that social workers in homeless
shelters are increasingly reticent to helping undocumented migrants due to
shelters “not being a proper springboard for these migrants to a more certain
future”. He explains that homeless shelters’ philosophy is not to “just
provide a roof and nothing else”, but rather to propose ‘re-socialization
projects’ to the homeless.
His
organization is only able to place 1/50 of the people that ask for housing help,
partly in emergency night shelters and partly in organizations. One of these
places is Accueil d’Urgence, a night
shelter where people can stay for a maximum of 30 days (18 beds for men; 5 beds
for women) and to which they cannot return before three months. When this
shelter is overloaded, priority is given to nationals.
Conditional
entry
Since a few years, a relief project for undocumented migrants is in place in shelters within the regions of Brussels and East Flanders. It is funded by the regional governments, which pay for the shelter costs. The spaces are very limited and their number in no way comes close to the amount of undocumented people looking for a roof. This public funding provides space for 12 people in Brussels and 6 in East Flanders, divided between night and long-term shelters (though mostly in night shelters). As from this year, 6 more spaces are opening to undocumented migrants in the Antwerp region, again with many conditions.
The
places in the shelters in this project are available on strict conditions. The
few undocumented people whom have been granted a space must agree to either work
on legalizing their situation in Belgium, or prepare an eventual return to their
country. If they work on neither of the two projects during their stay, they
will not be allowed to further remain in the shelter because they will be seen
as having chosen to be illegal in the country.[1]
In those shelters where the undocumented migrants relief project is going on,
volunteers or employees are specially trained to give the appropriate counseling
to the migrants.
[1] Legal homeless also enter long-term shelters on condition to work on a specific project, in their case that will help them find work, apply for social housing, etc.