Authorities have promised to open an additional shelter and have set up temporary facilities in various parts of the city. “We have around 1,000 people (whom) we are trying to relatively regularly assist on a daily basis, and maybe 2,000 whom we, at least once a year, assist in some way to reduce the negative consequences of living in the street,” said Mitrovic.Ī city of 2 million, Belgrade has a city-run shelter but its 100 places normally are fully booked well in advance, and are far from enough.
Mitrovic said Belgrade’s homeless thus mostly are people in their 50s and older, who have found themselves lost in the chaos of the economic destruction that followed the Yugoslav wars and the collapse of the socialist-era welfare state. While the sight of homeless people sleeping in parks and streets is common in most world capitals, in Serbia it emerged relatively recently, after the 1990s’ violent breakup of the former, communist-run Yugoslavia and the postwar transition. “They ended up without IDs, without any link with the system of health care or social welfare.” “They have been, almost all of them, abandoned by society,” he said. ADRA aims to discover as many as possible, offer immediate help and try to get them back into the system in the long run, Mitrovic said.
Routinely afflicted by chronic diseases, mental health problems or substance abuse, homeless people in Belgrade in most cases have no documents and live under the state radar. “(Homeless people) are now even more exposed,” he said. Igor Mitrovic, executive manager of the ADRA group that is behind the project, estimates that there are 7,000 homeless people in Belgrade alone. But it has grown in importance since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that has pushed already vulnerable communities further to the margins. The project of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency has developed gradually over the past four years. Three times a week, a humanitarian organization working in Serbia opens up its mobile bus center for the homeless, offering basic services and help to some of the thousands living and sleeping rough in the Balkan country’s capital city. This will be a rare chance for them to have a shower, wash their clothes or get a medical checkup. BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Standing close together on a sunny autumn day, a group of people wait patiently by a blue bus parked beneath a bridge in Belgrade.
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