Homelessness in the EU is exacerbated by free migration.

 Homelessness in the EU is exacerbated by free migration.

Free movement of people is seen by supporters of the EU as one of its greatest achievements, yet it leaves some of its most impoverished inhabitants out in the cold.

While a record number of citizens currently reside and work in another EU member state, an increasing number of people are leaving their home country and ending up on the streets. It is time for Brussels to intervene, according to outreach workers and MEPs.

While EU workers are allowed to move around the bloc, not everyone finds it simple to establish a comfortable life where they are. The local social security system is favoured by residence procedures, which means that poorer people—often in insecure and low-paying jobs—risk falling through the cracks.

With so many homeless people residing on the streets and in the metro stations near the city's EU sector, which houses the European Commission, Council, Parliament, and other institutions, the issue of rough sleeping in the Belgian capital is difficult to ignore. Some of the highest-paid EU officials and diplomats here offer change to rough sleepers.

In a crowded café close to the city centre, 59-year-old Nicolae declared over a cup of mint tea, "I didn't come from Romania [to Belgium] solely to accept social assistance." "I need a job,"

Morally, the EU shares some of the blame. — Freek Spinnewijn, FEANTSA's director

Nicolae lost his studio apartment in the multicultural neighbourhood of Molenbeek in central Brussels six years ago when he was unable to make his rent payments. He now spends his days and nights in the vicinity of Brussels Midi station, where trains from all across Europe and the Eurostar arrive, using soup kitchens and free Wi-Fi hotspots.

Around the bloc, there is a noticeable increase in rough sleeping. At least 700,000 individuals were sleeping on the streets or in emergency shelters across the EU as of 2019, according to a research by FEANTSA, an organisation fighting homelessness in the EU. This is an increase of 70% from ten years prior. The number of homeless individuals in Finland has decreased after a long-term policy offering them housing was implemented.

Squalid sleeping

Although organisations working to address the issue have noted a rise in the number of individuals from other EU nations in need of assistance, there are no official government statistics for homelessness in Belgium.

According to data from the emergency housing group Samusocial in Brussels, non-Belgian EU citizens made up 15.3% of those who sought shelter there in 2018. 16.4% of the population is Belgian, whereas 61.6% is from outside the European Union (the origins of the rest were not documented). 33 percent of Europeans were from the east of the continent.

According to Brussels outreach organisation Diogènes, 42% of the persons they assisted in 2018 were Belgian, 43% were citizens of other EU countries, and 15% were non-EU citizens. In 2019, the group communicated with more than 15% of Poles on their own.

Similar patterns were noted for major European cities. Non-Spanish EU men sleeping on the streets rose sharply in Barcelona, with their proportion of the total rising from roughly one-third (tied with Spanish and non-EU nations) in 2014 to 44 percent in 2018. Spanish and non-EU women are outnumbered by female non-Spanish EU nationals.

According to figures from the Greater London Authority, while 59% of people rough sleeping in London between 2018 and 2019 were British citizens, 31% of them were from Eastern Europe, and another 7% were from the rest of the continent.

Given the connection between free movement and homelessness, the director of FEANTSA, Freek Spinnewijn, stated, "Morally, the EU carries some of the responsibility." It's unfortunate that they are ignoring the detrimental effects of unrestricted movement.

Since around ten years ago, this issue has been urgent, but little has been done to address it, he continued.

Legislators are hesitant to extend welfare benefits to residents of other EU nations out of concern about what this would do to their social security systems.

According to Gilles Verstraeten, a member of the Flemish nationalist N-VA party in the Brussels parliament, "the free movement of workers is a good thing for European citizens who are looking for opportunities, for the economy and for the labour needs of EU countries, but it shouldn't evolve into a free movement of social support." He asserted it may result in "social shopping," where the most generous systems in Europe end up being the focus.

However, Spinnewijn stated that the EU should push some EU nations to build up this kind of service in order to ensure that people receive aid in their quest for a new job or that they can return to a country where they do have access to social assistance in a sustainable manner. He stated it calls for a comprehensive EU structure.

At least in Brussels, new initiatives are being made to address a growing issue. In December, Alain Maron, a Green minister for the Brussels region, unveiled a new homelessness strategy with an increase in financing of €14.8 million for shelters, initiatives to save individuals from losing their homes, and housing initiatives modelled after Finland.

According to Maron, who spoke on local radio, the paradigm change should assist the city in moving away from emergency measures, such as increasing aid during the winter, and toward the creation of a more viable long-term strategy. Even in the summer, there are street deaths. Operators are to oversee this on a yearly basis.

Asserting that it has heeded calls for action, the new Commission. In a January discussion, Commissioner for Jobs Nicolas Schmit promised a single "thread" for national governments and regions to address homelessness, saying, "Housing is at the heart of all social problems."

The trap of homelessness

For low-skilled migrants from other EU nations, negotiating the bureaucracy in their country of arrival is a significant barrier.

In 2007, the year Romania joined the EU, Nicolae moved from the Transylvanian region to the "capital of Europe" in search of employment. He then began working for a fruit grower in Londerzeel, a little municipality 20 kilometres north of Brussels, when he was in his late forties. He claimed that although his pay was low, it was greater than what he would have made in Romania and that lodging was also provided. But two years later, when his boss passed away, he was back on the streets.

In 2011, he developed a terrible illness, which at first resulted in a small cash windfall. When the federal government agreed he could remain to get the medical services he need, he passed the first stage of Belgium's registration procedure. And as someone working toward obtaining residency rights, that also included a monthly allowance and a lump payment to help him settle down, which he used to rent an apartment in Molenbeek.

However, his time there was brief. Later, the government reversed its decision to grant him medical leave to remain in the nation and ended his allowance. "I had my TV, my bed, and my fridge. All gone, he declared.

"You don't exist without an address, thus you don't have rights," — Bram Van de Putte, a representative for Diogenes.

He is still holding out hope that the verdict would ultimately be reversed despite the fact that he is currently caught up in an appeal process that began in 2014. "It would have been better if they had told me from the beginning that I had to go back to Romania," stated Nicolae. He claimed that he has nothing left to bring him back. Since he arrived in Belgium, his parents had passed away.

Unreliable access by EU nationals to social services, which are frequently only available to citizens of a country, is a persistent issue. This is made worse by the EU's lack of involvement in how nations evaluate applicants for residency based on their work. People who relocate abroad to work unstable, low-paying jobs are particularly prone to missing out since countries frequently tilt toward a restrictive interpretation of what constitutes "real" work, according to FEANTSA.

This implies that migrants from other EU nations who are homeless run the risk of getting caught in a circle that renders their situation essentially permanent: there is no home without money, but there is also no money without job, and there is also no work without a home.

Bram Van de Putte, an outreach worker at Diogènes, said: "Without an address, you don't exist, thus you don't have rights."

Many EU nations are still far from ending this loop.