Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.02.2013, Page 14

Iceland | Homelessness
On The Outside
Where are the homeless of Reykjavík?
Guðbjörn visits daily, after having his
breakfast at home. When I meet him,
he's wearing a blue and pink wool
sweater under a worn leather jacket
and a teal fedora. On his finger is a sil-
ver ring, a gift from a friend. Like him,
the face on the ring is long with broad
features, more Native American than
Icelandic. Three years ago, before his
daughter returned to Iceland from Swe-
den, Guðbjörn had been homeless for
four years, sleeping in shelters on good
nights, and in abandoned buildings and
outside under trees on bad nights, when
the shelters were full. Decades of drug
use and addiction preceded his years on
the streets. What started off as casual
pot use escalated to ecstasy, speed and
LSD by the time he was 17. His addic-
tion spanned decades, ruined his en-
gagement to the mother of his child and
turned long trips at sea into painful ses-
sions of withdrawal symptoms.
After going through rehab at SÁÁ,
Iceland’s Centre for Addiction Medi-
cine, he has been sober for 12 years.
When his daughter, who lived in Swe-
den, returned to Iceland four years ago
she agreed to let him move in with her.
Now he spends his days reading the pa-
per at Kaffistofan and going to the gym
three times a week.
DEFINING THE HOMELESS
OF REYKJAVÍK
Reykjavík's homeless problem doesn't
manifest itself in the usual ways.
Droves of people aren't reduced to pan-
handling on street corners or sleeping
overnight in bus stops. It wouldn't be
hard to spend a week or two downtown
taking in the city's whimsical, idyllic at-
mosphere and be convinced that home-
lessness just doesn't exist in Iceland.
In October 2012, Reykjavík City
Council’s welfare department released
a study on the nature of homeless-
ness in the capital region. The report,
written by Erla Björg Sigurðardóttir,
surveyed the Reykjavík Red Cross, the
city's welfare services, prison services,
the police, and Samhjálp, a local ser-
vice organisation owned by Fíladelfía
church and asked the groups to help
identify the individuals they served
between March and May of that year.
The study found that 179 men and
women between the ages of 18 and 79
were in some state of homelessness. Of
the 179, 160 were Icelandic citizens, 12
were from Poland, two from Latvia, one
from Britain, one from Denmark and
one from Lithuania.
The study identified six types of
homelessness. There are the ‘utan-
garðsfólk,’ which roughly translates
to “the outsiders,” people who live
outdoors and outside of society; those
who live in temporary shelters such as
Samhjálp's Gistiskýli for men or the
Red Cross' Konukot for women; wom-
en who've escaped abusive home envi-
ronments for crisis centres; men and
women who've left prison, rehabilita-
tion centres or halfway houses and
have nowhere to live; formerly home-
less people living under supervised
care; and people living in “precarious”
situations. “Precarious” implies any-
thing from temporary situations such
as staying with family and friends,
to living in borderline uninhabitable
buildings.
This broader definition of home-
lessness may explain why the problem
isn't as evident as it is in other cities.
While 179 individuals are facing some
form of housing difficulty, only 22 indi-
viduals, 14 men and eight women, were
reportedly sleeping on the streets.
THE BEST PLACE TO BE
HOMELESS?
“I think it’s a very hidden problem.
People just don’t realise that there
are so many who need this kind of
help. Or maybe they don’t care,” says
Þórunn Ýr Elíasdóttir, who works as
Samhjálp’s bookkeeper and financial
advisor. She also runs Sporið, a 17-
room halfway house located in the
area surrounding the capital.
For many of the homeless in Reykja-
vík, the city offers a number of services.
“It’s not so very bad, in Iceland, to be
an outsider," Þórunn says. A man can
spend an entire day migrating from re-
source to resource.
Each night starts at Gistiskýlið, the
men's shelter on Þingholtstraeti. The
building is fairly nondescript from the
outside—there isn't a large "Men's
Shelter" sign. People just know to go
there and ring the buzzer on the front
step starting at 17:00. There's a camera
trained on the front door, projecting
black and white security footage for the
men who run the shelter each night. In-
side the viewing room is a cot for staff
members to sleep on and cubbies to
store the personal belongings and/or al-
cohol belonging to the night's residents.
The shelter is three stories tall and
has twenty beds. The walls are decorat-
ed with paintings of horses and cathe-
drals which, along with the lighting, the
hospital beds and the linoleum flooring,
add to the hospital vibe of the building.
The men have breakfast between
8:30 and 10:00, then head next door to
have breakfast with the nuns of Kven-
nakirkjan. Kaffistofan is open from
10:00 to 17:00, but the afternoon is
also a good time to take a shuttle to
Dagsetrið, a service Þórunn refers to
as a sort of day care for adults run by
the Salvation Army. Guests can play
pool, socialise, get haircuts, foot mas-
sages and have their clothes washed.
Men who are sober and mentally able
are selected to paint benches around
the city for 500 ISK. Kaffistofan
serves a hot meal around 15:00, and
Gistiskýlið opens again at 17:00 with
coffee and snacks, beginning the cy-
cle over again.
In the city's report, most of those
served by the city's welfare services
reported that they were happy with
the services provided to them, though
they wished for more round-the-clock
services.
“I think we have enough resources
for this group," Þórunn says. “We just
have to make better use of what we
have.” Yet, when Þórunn says it's not
so bad to be homeless in Iceland, she
means the available resources are of-
fering basic comforts, but they aren't
as geared towards helping the home-
less get back on their feet.
“Nobody in Iceland has to starve.
Nobody in Iceland has to sleep out-
side,” she says, “but when everyone
is struggling, those who work look
at the ones who don’t, and see people
who spend their day being drunk,
don’t have to pay rent, don’t have to
pay for food, or anything except for
their alcohol or drugs. We have to do
something to help those people be-
come more responsible and take re-
sponsibility for their lives,” she says.
- ARIT JOHN
Nobody in Iceland
has to starve. No-
body in Iceland has
to sleep outside
“
„
Patrice Helmar
14The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 2 — 2013
Kaffistofan, downtown Reykjavík's soup kitchen, has the off-white walls, bland decor and fluorescent lighting of a hospital
cafeteria. Located on Borgatún behind a worn and graffitied wooden fence facing Harpa and the oceanfront, Kaffistofan
serves hot meals and snacks between 10:00 and 17:00. Everyone is welcome, and the cafeteria is visited by anyone looking for
a free meal, a place to sit and read the paper or a place to meet with friends.
Konukot, Reykjavík's
Women's Shelter
Since December 10, 2004, the Reyk-
javík branch of the Icelandic Red
Cross has been running Konukot for
the homeless women of the city.
Like Gistiskýlið, which has been
run by Samhjálp since fall of 1990,
Konukot is run in partnership with
the Reykjavík City Council’s social
welfare department. After a two-year
trial period, the Red Cross was given
additional funds from the City to con-
tinue running the shelter.
Konukot is open between 17:00
in the evening and noon the follow-
ing day. Women are asked to enter
the house before 1:00 in the morn-
ing. Snacks are offered in the evening
and breakfast is served in the morn-
ing. Konukot also offers bathing fa-
cilities and clean clothes.
Many of the women who stay at
Konukot deal with drug and alco-
hol addiction, and the shelter offers
weekly visits from city social workers
and counselling on the connection
between syringe use and diseases
such as HIV.
Resources
If you find
yourself in need
of help, the fol-
lowing resources
may be helpful.
Gistiskýlið
Open: 17 - 10.00
Þingholtsstræti 25,
101 Reykjavík
561-0477
Salvation Army
Kirkjustræti 2,
121 Reykjavik
552-0788
The Icelandic
Red Cross
Efstaleiti 9,
103 Reykjavík
570-4000
Samhjálp
Stangarhyl 3a,
110 Reykjavík
561-1000
Kaffistofan
Open:
10 - 16.00
weekdays &
11 - 16.00
weekends
Borgartún 1,
105 Reykjavík
561-1007
Konukot
Open: 17 - 12.00
Eskihlíð 4, 105
Reykjavík
511-5150