These are the homeless, in German obdachlos, which translates as “without a roof” (people also call them Penners). In the Federal Republic, by various estimates, there are (only registered!) over 600,000 of them. The question arises: what does one have to do to “stand out” in Germany — a country with the highest degree of social protection — to end up without a roof over one’s head?
DOWNHILL
The smallest portion of the German homeless are people who are inclined to wander because of mental disorders. There are also those who lost their housing due to a fatal set of circumstances (these, as a rule, try to climb out of the situation as best they can using various social programs). But the typical German Penner is either an experienced drug addict or a chronic alcoholic who has lost his job and lost touch with his family and former circle of friends and acquaintances.
Their path “to the bottom” goes roughly like this: drinking or drugs lead to the loss of a job, after a while the family falls apart, rent arrears pile up, and within a maximum of three months the person is evicted onto the street. Another variant is possible: loss of a job — drinking or drugs “out of grief” — then the same as the first scheme. And once on the street, a person fairly quickly becomes not only a bum (i.e., without a fixed place of residence), but also, to use the terminology of Soviet law, “a subject without a definite occupation, leading a parasitic way of life.” But since the laws of the FRG provide for neither criminal nor administrative liability for this, and alcohol and drug addiction in Germany, as everywhere in the West, is treated exclusively on a voluntary basis, from a legal point of view a homeless alcoholic or drug addict holding out his hand for alms is not considered a criminal.
THREE SOURCES - THREE COMPONENTS
How do these people live? Some unobtrusively beg. Some steal small things. And some get by on odd jobs. For example, selling so-called “street newspapers” (Germany has for the past five years had an Association of Social Newspapers of the Homeless, which includes 32 publications with a total circulation of about half a million copies). In Lower Saxony, this is the newspaper Asphalt, costing €1.5. The first 10 copies the Penner receives free (for “promotion”), the rest for a fee. Half the proceeds and tips he keeps for himself, the rest he gives to the distribution department. These publications exist not on sales revenues, but thanks to advertising and, above all, sponsors. And sponsors are often stars of the German show business and sports. Their exclusive interviews increase demand for such publications, which is why they sell quickly.
As for begging, this “business” is not prohibited in Germany. Of course, if a beggar’s actions cross into an offense (for example, annoying passers-by), the omnipresent police will intervene at once. They will also stop the collection of alms in places where beggars are forbidden to stand — say, at the staircase leading to the Lower Saxony Landtag. Though why would they want the Landtag when diagonally opposite it is the Markthalle, an expensive covered market frequented by well-to-do people? That’s where they stand. They also stand on the main city promenade — on Krupcke — and in other crowded places. More precisely, they sit — some on a rolled-up sleeping bag, some on a backpack with simple belongings.
Next to him is a small dog — a typical mutt, smart and endlessly devoted to its master. These lovely dogs are in the full sense of the word breadwinners for their two-legged companions. First, for dog food, the owner can receive €2.50 a day from the local “welfare office.” Second, when setting up his “workplace,” the beggar will necessarily put out a plastic bowl and a cardboard sign with a request to give whatever one can to feed the dog. And although passers-by perfectly understand what’s going on, they still toss in small change.
And even though a half-liter of 38-degree “Korn” costs a five, in two or three hours at least a ten is collected. And for every “penny” there follows a grateful nod, accompanied by a respectful danke. This is explained not so much by the good manners of the beggars as by their practical knowledge of the basics of psychology.
BOARD AND LODGING
In Germany, the concept of “homeless” is quite relative. Unlike in the CIS countries, there are many assistance programs for the homeless here (these are run by public and church charitable organizations; their budgets run into tens of millions of euros). A whole network of shelters meeting all European standards has been created for the homeless in the country. There they give not only shelter, but also hot meals, and quite decent clothing and shoes, and at the first request they will issue a “Schein” for free medical care — outpatient or inpatient.
Theoretically, any Penner can return to a settled life on any given day. To do so, he only needs to approach the first social worker he meets at any of the countless homeless assistance services — in every German city there is at least one such point. There he will not only be advised in the greatest detail, but they will also help him fill out forms, and they will arrange with staff of the relevant agencies (the labor agency, Sozialamt, Wohnungsamt, etc.) a time when the Penner who has decided to start a new life can come to them.
Only, as a rule, Penners do not need their help — they themselves know perfectly well what and how to do. But they do not want to. One wonders why?
THE HOMELESS HAVE THEIR OWN PRIDE
In different words, but to the same effect, I was answered this question by a nun at the Catholic mission at Hanover’s main railway station, an employee of the Hanover branch of the Red Cross, and a senior public relations officer from the police department of the capital of Lower Saxony. Their answers boiled down to the fact that for a native German, becoming a welfare recipient is many times more shameful than begging on the street.
But there are no welfare recipients now, I say. Now they are either considered unemployed or, if age permits, recipients of basic pension provision. What is there to be ashamed of? It sounds more respectable, doesn't it?
"True," my interlocutors agreed, smiling. "But apparently people haven't yet gotten used to these innovations..."
It seems, however, that the reason is by no means the innate pride of the local homeless. Take, for example, the housing question. After all, no occupancy permits are issued here – the person in need of housing must find it themselves. And having found it, go through a whole series of agencies for paperwork. Finding a landlord is not a problem. But the latter, having determined the social status of the tenant at first glance, will immediately find a plausible pretext for refusal. Because he knows: before long the apartment will turn into a den, the entranceway into a cesspool, the police, due to neighbors' complaints, will visit the building as if going to work, residents will start moving out, and whether there will be takers for their place is a big question.
WASTED EFFORT
But that is in theory. In practice, a penner will not bother looking for housing, because he knows what obligations various agencies will inevitably 'burden' him with on all sides. And first of all – to find a job, which involves a mass of bureaucratic procedures. And why would a penner want all this hassle? After all, a chronic drug addict, if he is one, depending on the diagnosis, is given a dose of methadone, or even heroin, in the morning at a charitable 'distribution point', so that he does not go robbing passers-by or stealing in supermarkets in search of money to buy a 'fix' from street drug dealers. And an alcoholic will have enough for a hangover from the daily €5 that the social services give him for pocket money.
Yes, in the same newspaper Asphalt, essays are published from time to time, whose heroes, having told of a difficult childhood in a drinking family, a hooligan adolescence on the streets, and a prison youth, share with the reader the joy that at long last, at such-and-such a year of life, they have found a roof over their heads. True, a paragraph later it turns out that the one who found the coveted roof is either HIV-positive or suffers from cancer of the lungs (stomach, intestines, blood)... But since even such materials are not frequent, reading them makes one suspect that 'free birds', as long as they are still able to drag their feet, neither want to nor can change their already habitual way of life.