From shelters to prisons? How homelessness became illegal in Hungary

On 14 November, a group of citizens formed a human chain  around the seats of the councillors in the Budapest City Council and thereby obstructed the proceedings. Holding hands, they sang Hungarian folk songs and recited poems, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Social Charter. They were the activists and supporters of the grassroots homeless advocacy group The City Is For All  who had engaged in this act of peaceful civil disobedience to protest – once again – the criminalisation of homelessness.

The city council was supposed to vote on – and upon the forceful removal of the activists by the police, voted on and passed – an ordinance which significantly expanded those areas of Budapest in which homelessness is illegal. Since mid-October, an amendment to the Law on Petty Offences  had made it illegal to sleep rough in world cultural heritage areas, which cover Budapest’s entire city-centre. Now there is a long and labyrinthine list of additional areas in Budapest where homeless people can be subjected to forceful removal and penalties, and other local authorities all around the country are also passing ordinances to outlaw homelessness. How did we get here?

The current punitive surge has its roots both in the former “socialist” regime as well as in the two decades following the transition to free-market capitalism and parliamentary democracy in 1989-1990. Before the transition, extensive social policies and full employment (for men) were complemented by punitive measures directed against those “living an idle or alcoholic lifestyle”. It was illegal to be unemployed or to be homeless. According to an ordinance issued in 1985, for example, anyone found homeless in public spaces was to be arrested. Homelessness was not abolished but punitive measures, accompanied by state censorship of the press and academia, made much of it invisible to the public, especially rough sleeping.

The disintegration of the socialist system led to a decline in economic output and to levels of unemployment comparable to those of the Great Depression. Deindustrialisation, impoverishment, a rapid increase in housing costs and the closure of nearly all workers’ hostels led to mass homelessness in Hungary. At the same time, however, earlier criminalising measures were abolished, civil rights were formally guaranteed, and an elaborate system of homeless assistance services emerged.

weiter: Heinrich Böll Stiftung