Homeless: zoneforbud can ruin my life

A divorce and foreclosure pushed seven years ago, Allan Andersen out on the street.

- If you think that one chooses to be homeless, taking one errors, says Allan, at 59 years old.

Over the street-the experience has left its mark. He knows where to find the city's best sleeps, where you can sit when it rains, and then he has got a lot of friends, which helps him. A kind soul locks his bike in the night, private offers him a sofa when the weather reaches the freezing point, and he is cuddling with the staff on the Shell-tank, where he comes every morning.

All the fixed, daily routines, and the help he gets around, he risks losing. As a consequence of the law against 'utryghedsskabende camps', which entered into force nearly two years ago, he can be hit by a zoneforbud, which forbids him to move in the city of Copenhagen.

- I lose everything if I get kicked out of Copenhagen. I lose my permanent sleeping place, and the place I store my bike. I will not be able to visit my mother or to download the House of the Past-newspapers, I sell, he explains.

the Law was introduced to combat the roma camps, which ravaged Copenhagen in the summer of 2017. Out of the 451 offenders, foreign homeless is 374 of them from Romania. But also nine Danish homeless people have been sentenced, according to figures from the national Police.

Allan Andersen will not risk to be notified, and he, therefore, seeks out of the city in the evening, when he must sleep.

- I save me and move me and are more aware of not to be a nuisance to anyone, says Allan.

The places which before were all safe, because there were many people, has now been utrygt, because he is afraid to be reviewed.

- Everything which is a sour madame, as it seems, I am creating insecurity and notify me and then the wrong police officer, who is in a bad mood, he explains.

- You feel criminalized and diskremineret. To think that you just can notify a particular group of people in order to create 'insecurity' and at the background send them out of the municipality, which creates the breeding ground for the whole of one's life, he says.

Allan Andersen understand that people are sick of the roma camps, which was to mobilise the new law. ‘It is taxpayers who pay for the clean-up, and I can understand that, they don't bother. But the law also hits all of us Danish homeless people who could never dream of that pig on the way’ says Allan Andersen, who, after the visit in the forest must be allowed to dry menneskelort of his shoes. Photo: Rasmus Flindt Pedersen

The new law forbids homeless people to sleep together, because it can be considered as 'utrygskabende camps'. For the homeless themselves is the utrygt to sleep alone. More people are being exposed to abuse, violence and theft.

- I am social worker through the House Passing by, and I will, therefore, be called up when other homeless people have been beaten, set on fire or pissed on of the transient. It is clear that many do not dare to sleep alone outside, says Allan Andersen.

A solution that some resort to, is to sleep on herbergerne instead of on the street.

- of Course, there are herbergerne, but both in Copenhagen and in many other places, there is not enough space. Many feel that they can use them, either because you are not allowed to have a dog, or sleep in the dormitories, where there is noise, they are being robbed or have diagnoses that do, they can't, say, Ask Svejstrup from The homeless, and Conventional SAND.

Allan Andersen is one of them, who do not like to spend the night at a hostel.

- I like to have all my stuff when I wake up. Are you aware of how uncool it is to have to spend a whole day on the street, if someone has taken one's socks and shoes? ask Allan Andersen, which therefore is sleeping alone outside.

- I take my measures to be taken, and it is important to have all senses on. I wake up, if the branches break around me and I put myself to sleep places, where I can quickly and easily get out of the sleeping bag and run for it, he says.