Depaul Slovakia: Breakfast for the Homeless

What is happening at Depaul as days? As days are getting shorter and colder we are busy preparing for the coming winter season. The number of clients in the nightshelter grows and these days we are having 160-165 clients per night. We are sorry that opening new medical clinic for homeless is delayed due to some minor administrative issues and will not be done before winter. The cold paper won again over the human needs.

Last week our old friend and free-lance photographer Lukáš Macek visited us and we are excited to share some of his pictures with you.

After reconstruction the Nightshelter is divided into two parts: a “standard” nightshelter in a new part and low threshold area in the old part of the building which is primarily used for people with alcohol or drug abuse. We hope that different quality of space might be a good motivation for our clients to cooperate and strive for better.

We increased the capacity of the nightshelter from 150 to 200. It is a strange situation for us, because finally we have enough space and rooms but we lack beds. In the past we regularly had 175-200 people sleeping at Nightshelter especially during the winter. But now we need not only 30 beds to fill the capacity, but also 5 emergency beds for both sections. Having both standard and low-threshold sections of the nightshelter feels almost as running two nightshelters in the same building. 

You can see our clients these days cleaning public squares and streets in Bratislava. Each week a group of 10-15 clients moves from nightshelter to a different city area and collects garbage and cleans the space there. For some of them (especially those struggling with drug or alcohol abuse) this is the only work they are able to do, for others it might be a good opportunity and first step to a permanent job. In September we organized a series of Career training for 15 clients in the Nightshelter and within few days after they finished, five of them got a regular job.

We are thrilled to announce the date for the concert at Nightshelter which will be on 6th December starting at 2.p.m. If you have chance don’t miss this great opportunity to visit our place and enjoy fantastic music the same time.