Budapest Takes Concerted Action to Help Homeless in Underpasses

Budapest, November 20 (MTI) – Social workers, public area inspectors and the police will take week-long action day and night in Budapest’s most frequented underpasses to help homeless people in need, the Budapest municipality’s law-enforcement directorate said today.

The aim of the action is to ensure that no homeless person in the capital is left without care, the directorate said in a statement. Everyone should receive help to ensure that they spend the coldest days and nights in a warm place, it added.

The aim is to prevent hypothermia and to take action against “deviant persons to ensure that frequented underpasses are kept clean and in order…”

At the beginning of November, Hungary’s supreme court, the Kuria, ruled that a section of the 2013 municipal decree restricting the use of public spaces by the homeless is in breach of the law.

“Rough sleeping cannot be punished unless it poses a danger to society,” the Kuria said in its ruling.

The homeless decree was referred to the Kuria by the ombudsman for fundamental rights, Laszlo Szekely, who argued that the decree had established an unreasonably broad range of areas where homeless living was banned. He said the municipality had overstepped its powers outlined by a 2012 law on minor offences when issuing the decree.

The Kuria will make its final decision on several parts of the decree after the Constitutional Court prepares its review. It has already annulled a part of the decree and asked the municipality to change its regulations by the end of the year.

The municipality of Budapest spends 1.5 billion forints (EUR 4.9m) on providing subsistence to the homeless.

Photo: www.csabaimerleg.hu

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters