Stories

One morning we set out to look for Mr. M. He’s mentally limited and lives on the street. He moves about a lot and finding him is always a challenge.

First, we search in the huge parking lot of a shopping center, then in the center itself and finally in the surroundings: gloomy viaducts, remains of camping spots, old shopping carts full of rubbish. But no trace of Mr. M.

When we join her today, Mrs. A hides her face in her hands. She groans, she weeps. An icy wind hits the courtyard where we’re sitting and makes the atmosphere even more desolate. Nobody can escape suffering. I know. As a social assistant, as someone who wants to relieve misery in all its forms. I empathise with her suffering, each time she looks at me with swollen eyes.

Mrs L. is almost 50 years old. She’s been living on the street for 20 years, got placed in institutions from a very early age and is a victim of the failing Belgian system. Street Nurses in Liège are worried about her and feel powerless in the face of her misery.

We dedicate this article to Mr. F, a man with an impressive career, intelligent and with a mischievous look in his eyes. We want to highlight his story but also how it could have ended if he had been granted asylum.

We knew her husband, Mr. N, very well. He was a bon vivant and quite outspoken. You could hardly miss him whenever he was around. He had bags of humor and inspired a lot of sympathy in people he met. His two passions were Johnny and dogs. He had survived innumerable ordeals so that people almost thought he was immortal. Even so, we had to let him go in the winter of 2021.

Today I accompanied Mr. S. to his mother’s funeral.

A few days ago, a family member told us that his mother had died. We knew little about the contacts he still had with his family. He tends to tell us with a broad smile that everything is fine, that the contacts are in order and that, he too, is OK. But we know that he’s sometimes “too proud” to tell us that he’s going through a difficult period.

Today, I visited with my colleagues a patient in Liège. I travelled there by train and met them at the Guillemins station. I hardly know this town and even less the patients Street Nurses supports there.

We’re going to visit Mr. J in his home at a few minutes distance. We tried to inform him ahead of our visit but couldn’t get through. So now we’re trying just on the off chance.

I see all sorts of camping spots pop up in Liège. When I walked past these homeless people before, all sorts of questions went through my mind. I saw them move around, occupy spots here and there, but never to stay. A body in a garage entrance, the movements of someone breathing under a blanket, stuff piled up in a corner, a piece of cardboard under a porch…Clearly visible traces of poverty, but always of a temporary nature.

Mr. T and Mr. X are two patients we support in their homes.

For several months, they have been members of the tenants’ council, organized by the “Affiliation” team. There they can meet other tenants in the Brussels Housing First project and together select activities in which they’d like to participate.

It was a cold and rainy day as one could expect towards the end of the year.

The whole morning, we had been on an inspection round, with under our arm a Xmas present which schoolchildren had prepared for you.

We were soaked and the gift’s packaging was a mess. But I’ll never forget your big smile when you saw us coming with the present. It was a smile I had never seen before on your face. I’d almost say: of a big child.

My grandmother once said to me: “What would you give to be like someone else?” …and I always refused to give anything because I don’t want to be like someone else.

A, one of our street patients recently died in unclear circumstances. We started his follow-up more than three years ago but at that moment he had probably been living on the street for ten years or more already.

Under his lovely smile, his vague and ever repeated stories, and his constant refusal of help, we assumed the presence of hidden wounds, resulting from family circumstances and exile. We’ll probably never know.