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The papers
ˆ “ Those with no home to go to after prison would end up on the streets if it were not for independent shelters like this one ” ˇ
Halfway there “It’s very difficult to come out of prison. You think you’re going to find everything as it was but everything has changed. People have disappeared, others have moved on, some have fallen ill.” We are sitting with Yassine in a back room of the Petits Riens / Spullenhulp, Belgium’s largest welcome centre for the homeless. He works in the centre’s social economy and we’ve nabbed him between hauling boxes in the rain at the back of the organisation’s flagship shop on Rue Americaine / Amerikaansestraat. He’s happy to tell us about the painful grey bit that ex-cons experience between prison life and normal life, a re-adaptive journey from institutionalised criminal to regular Joe. He was only 20 when the bars slammed shut behind him. Now in his thirties, his release has been confrontational – there is a new currency called the euro to contend with, along with something called the Internet. “I was on parole for a year. No, I didn’t feel free. I had to wear an electronic bracelet and I had a strict timetable to respect. There were lots of conditions. A couple of
times I didn’t respect the timetable so they brought me back to prison. It was very difficult, because you find yourself in prison again, even though you didn’t do anything wrong, you’re just late for an appointment.” He shakes his head. He says, funnily, that in his first days of “freedom,” he spent a lot of his time looking at cars. Most of the 120 men here have come from prison, either directly or after an unsuccessful stint at “home”. And yet, this is not a halfway house, a supervised state-run centre for ex-detainees. That’s because Belgium doesn’t do halfway houses. Those with no home to go to after prison would end up on the streets if it were not for independent shelters like this one. The woman who answered our call at the Office for Social Re-adaptation in Boulevard Anspach/Anspachlaan told us, “For early release, the detainee must have a fixed address. But after the end of the sentence, if they have no address, we just let them go. We have nothing more to do with them. I’m not saying it’s the best system…” Sadly, most of Belgium’s 10,968 prisoners (of which only 443 are women, according to official statistics), many will have burned their bridges by the time they complete their sentence. Homeless
shelters are their only option. The Office for Social Re-adaptation, along with NGOs like Apres and Petits Riens / Spullenhulp help them to develop a viable plan for a future, to write a CV, to apply for jobs and to “sell” themselves. But the majority arrive with drug addictions or mental problems (or both) that they picked up inside, adding to their considerable woes. A glance at the shiftless men lining the hallway of the shelter is testimony to this. A sincere Yassine says he is rehabilitated, and we like him enough to believe him. After all, isn’t that what all that tax money is paying for? He is looking to the future, with a wife and kids and normal stuff. “When I see people newly arrived at the centre from prison, I feel good because I have worked hard. But,” he adds, “You always feel like an ex-con. Everywhere I go, I am controlled. As far as I’m concerned, I’m finished with all that. But if there is a fight on the street and someone else gets involved, nothing happens. But if I get involved, I automatically get five years in prison.” (RK) petitsriens.be