Spaces of the homeless

Spaces of the homeless

Amy Lim Roberts Semester 3 - MA Spatial Design, Perception and Detail The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and Design (KADK) Number of characters: 35,215 20.12.2017 Supervisor: Silje Alberthe Kamille Friis

Motivation As a foreigner who has lived here in Denmark for three years, I have been able to experience the qualities and benefits of the danish welfare system. Sometimes Denmark is even being described, by foreigners and Danes alike, as some kind of wonderland where even the unemployed are being spoiled with big amounts of money from the state but one does not have to look far to realise that this is only a myth. Personally I have noticed the quite significant presence of homeless people around the city, which has made me curious about why a country which prides itself of its high degree of welfare and equality, are unable to take care of the people who are worst off.

I still wonder why there is a growing number of homeless people living in the urban fabric of Copenhagen, in contradiction to the strong belief that the social security net of the welfare state catches everyone. Denmark is known for being a democratic country, where citizens are empowered to have a say in the development of their cities, but are everyone really being heard in this process? It often seems to me that it is a general tendency, to almost actively try to remove homeless people from public places, rather than creating spaces that accommodate for their existence. I cant help but thinking that one of the most basic human needs is a place to dwell, and if people are still falling out of the welfare system, at the very least they must have spaces available to unfold their lives in. The homeless people still have the right to use the public space of the city as much as everyone else, but their existence depends much more on those spaces, than the rest of its users.

It is interesting how from an architectural perspective, the phenomenon of homelessness challenges the design of the city from the big scale of city planning to the small scale of the specific urban interior. The standard notions of public and private spaces are being mixed up as the public spaces of the city are in fact also the private home of the homeless. In his book about the city and social inequality, Preben Brandt emphasises how the homeless ‘…undermines our collective understanding of what is reasonable and normal in the public spaces of the city by breaking the rules of what belongs in the private, and what belongs in the public space’.1 As a spatial designer, I believe we have an ethical responsibility to create better spaces in the city that are not excluding ways of life different from the norm. Henri Lefebvre describes the right to the city as the human right to take part in structuring and living an urban life.2 Based on this notion of the right to the city I am interested in learning how the homeless manage to live their lives around on the few spaces available to them, but also how the (lacking) aesthetic qualities of these spaces influence their wellbeing.

1

Brandt, Preben. Byen og social ulighed. (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2009), 116

2

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 158 2

Context As the danish welfare model is being challenged by changes in todays society, the amount of homeless and their increasing visibility in Copenhagen are highlighting a growing presence of social inequalities in the danish society. A recent report released by Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd has concluded a constant rise in homelessness, since they started surveying in 2009. Approximately 50% of the homeless citizens are registered in the Copenhagen region, answering to every fourth homeless person in the country3.

Obviously the homeless of Copenhagen are not completely left to their own devices and many efforts are made by public institutions and private organisations to support them. However due to a number of different reasons, they may or may not be capable of navigating the social security system, so despite free access to public support many of the homeless can be described as living on the edge of the welfare system. As a new law allowing the police to displace homeless people based on reported discomfort of other citizens, one could suspect that the politicians have other and quite different intentions than to simply help the homeless.4 These findings have put into question the current role of the welfare state in the quality of the institutions and organisations that are providing support and outreach to the homeless. The question is if the spaces around Copenhagen that are used by and created for the homeless are successful in improving their well-being. Architecture and design are never going to solve the issue of homelessness, but I think it can affect the homeless in both negative and positive ways, and to a much greater extent than what seems to be generally recognised.

Question The question I would like to explore and pose for the written assignment is How and why do the homeless use the different spaces available to them and how can this inform the design of the city?

Method I will take my starting point for the assignment in understanding what defines homelessness in present day Copenhagen.

As the homeless people seem to be a very diverse group, generalising them just based on the fact that they are homeless is misleading and inadequate in trying to understand their situation. Therefore I will outline a few key factors that defines commonalities and differences between the homeless, through building a background knowledge based on SFI’s recent (2017) report on homelessness in Denmark, Preben Brandt's book Byen og Social Ulighed, alongside various articles.

3

Benjaminsen, Lars. Hjemløshed I Danmark 2017. National Kortlægning. (Copenhagen: VIVE, 2017), 13

4

Justice, Alexandra. “Regeringen tillader at smide hjemløse helt ud af kommuner: »Begyndelsen på en heksejagt«”, accessed December 19, 2017. https:// www.b.dk/nationalt/regeringen-tillader-at-smide-hjemloese-helt-ud-af-kommuner-det-er-begyndelsen-paa 3

Building on to the quantitative overview I will narrow down my focus with a qualitative approach by three interviews carried out in context with three (four) people, representing different experiences of homelessness in Copenhagen. The Interviews will be my main empirical case, as the issues of homelessness is put into specific spatial relations by the personal stories and experiences of the interviewed. Throughout my research I have collated my findings during interviews and city walks on a physical map (fig. 7), to represent my personal experience of the spaces described or shown to me, by the interviewees.

My theoretical framework will be based on the political notion of the right to the city as conceived by Henri Lefebvre and revisited by David Harvey. This will help me take a critical look at the structures shaping our cities, and inform about how the spaces of the everyday life of the homeless are strongly (often negatively) influenced by political ideologies.

To combine my empirical findings with the theoretical framework in my spatial analysis I will apply the method of behaviorology as practiced by Atelier Bow-Wow. ‘Behaviorology is accordingly not focused on an isolated event that can be explained in causal or functional terms but rather a series of events that puts all actors - human and non-human - on equal footing. Whether individuals and their daily activities, the natural environment and its physical laws, or buildings and their legal, legal, economic, climatic, and structural circumstances, all are mutually dependent, and morph constantly in unique constellations.’ 5 Based on my spatial analysis, I will conclude by trying to reach a more general conclusion on how understanding the city from the perspective of the homeless can inform architecture, planning and design, and how the right to the city can be a notion to help imagine a city better for everyone.

5

Stalder, Laurent, et al. “Behaviorology” in Atelier Bow-Wow, A Primer. (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013), 100-101 4

Defining the homeless The notion of homelessness can be understood in many different ways. The danish definition of homelessness is described as a general definition that defines the homeless as being people without a permanent housing situation: ‘As homeless, a person is considered as one that does not have their own place (owned or rented) or a room, but is reduced to temporary living alternatives or living temporarily and without a contract with family, friends or acquaintances. As homeless, a person is also without a place to stay the following night.’6 According to SFI (The National Research Centre for Welfare), the housing associated definition of homelessness does not indicate that homelessness can't simply be relieved by housing efforts, but rather that it must also be understood based on individual conditions such as psychological illness and addiction problems7 . It has been emphasised in the most recent report that over half of the registered homeless suffer from a psychological illness and a significant portion of them suffer from addiction, highlighting that many of the homeless are facing more challenges than just covering their needs for food and shelter (which is already hard enough).

The circumstances of the homeless vary a lot, depending if you are a local citizen or a foreigner. The total number of homeless citizens registered have excluded the number of immigrants, but it was emphasised in the report that a majority of the homeless were of danish background, and around one out of five were of immigrant or refugee background.8 As they are not registered the immigrant homeless often live completely outside the system, where the danish homeless who are registered here have the right to access the social support.

In recent years there has been acknowledged an increase in the number of female homeless, who are often confronted with even more difficult circumstances, and it was noted that a higher percentage of homeless women suffer from a psychological illness. For women it can be considered a taboo to be homeless in a typically male-dominated environment, and in the institutions is the available support are often more targeted towards men. Many may not receive the adequate help and support necessary, especially as women are at a greater risk of harassment and violence both in the streets and in the shelters.9 Therefore the notion of homelessness is complex and one can not put the homeless into a box, but must rather understand them more as ‘people that don’t function within the framework that we all know and perceive as normal’10 . This means that the group that we tend to categorise as one, based on the single factor of not having a stable roof over your

6

Benjaminsen, Lars. Hjemløshed I Danmark 2017. National Kortlægning. (Copenhagen: VIVE, 2017), 18

7

Benjaminsen, Lars. Hjemløshed I Danmark 2017. National Kortlægning. (Copenhagen: VIVE, 2017), 19

8

Benjaminsen, Lars. Hjemløshed I Danmark 2017. National Kortlægning. (Copenhagen: VIVE, 2017), 11

9

Søndergaard, Britta.“Hjemløse kvinder mangler hjælp til at komme væk fra gadens hårde liv”, accessed December 18, 2017. https://www.kristeligtdagblad.dk/danmark/hjemloese-kvinder-mangler-hjaelp-til-komme-vaek-fra-gadens-haarde-liv 10

Brandt, Preben. Byen og social ulighed. (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2009), 119 5

head, is in fact a multitude of different age groups, ethnicities, and genders, and that there are many different factors at play for each individual homeless persons situation.11

Introduction to Fieldwork: Interviews in Context As the objective is to better understand how and why the homeless use the spaces of the city, I have chosen to utilise the expertise and experiences shared by a current homeless person, two social workers under Copenhagen's municipality and a previous homeless who works for the homeless NGO SAND. The intention behind the interviews is to elucidate which spaces in the city the homeless are using and to gain insight into both the qualities and shortcomings of these spaces in question. The method of undertaking these interviews in context was intended to help trigger experiences and/ or memories for the interviewee and at the same time make the interview more visually stimulating and interactive for both the interviewee and the interviewer (myself). Prior to undertaking the interviews, I had prepared some questions to help guide the dialogues, but often the interviews turned more conversational and led to unexpected topics and perspectives.

Rani Henriksen from SAND The interview in context with Rani Henriksen took place by the lakes in Christiania, where he preferred to meet, and ended with a walking tour to visit some municipal-owned housing for the homeless and socially vulnerable close by in Amager. It lasted for around two hours. The interview was semi-structured where I had prepared and brought some questions to ask, however the structure proved difficult to hold at times so parts of the interview allowed room for more conversational discussions. Rani is the chairman of SAND Nordsjælland and is also a member of the housing team from bench to dwelling. SAND (The Danish national organisation for homeless people) is a non for profit user organisation that represents the interests of the homeless and the formerly homeless in Denmark, providing a social and political platform for marginalised people. Rani himself is previously homeless, where he has spent around 6.5 years living in different institutions under section §110.

Through interviewing Rani I learnt that the issue of homelessness is much more complex than I initially thought and that the physical spaces (institutions, public squares, hang out spots, other spaces) used by the homeless, whether out of necessity or voluntarily, can be attributed to political systems that underpin the way our society is organised. I gained good insight into how some of the homeless institutions and shelters under the municipality are experienced from the perspective of a user, and he shared interesting observations on behaviour and issues in regards to certain spaces and their material surroundings.

11

Brandt, Preben. Byen og social ulighed. (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2009), 56 6

Allan Andersen, member of and seller for Hus Forbi As a recommendation through Rani, I was put in contact with Allan who is currently homeless and has been so for around 6 years. He works for Hus Forbi, a newspaper published monthly about homelessness with the purpose of informing the public about the problems and challenges facing the homeless, but also ‘giving the homeless [street] seller an opportunity to earn their own money and having a daily purpose.’12 Allan is additionally a member of the committee in Hus Forbi and has his fixed spot as a seller in Gentofte, but returns back to Copenhagen to spend time when he is off and where he also sleeps on the street. The interview lasted for around two hours and took place over a beer in Cafe Heimdal in Nørrebro, to the suggestion of Allan as a hang out place he visits regularly. It was too, a semi-structured interview allowing the interviewee some freedom to speak of what he additionally felt relevant.

As an evidently proud spokesperson for the homeless, the interview with Allan was both about the general situation for the homeless of Copenhagen but also a personal perspective from his everyday life. As he described his daily routine from when he wakes up until he falls back asleep, I got an accurate insight into the way of life of a homeless. He told how he always starts his day very early at his regular petrol station where he drinks two coffees before he makes his way to Gentofte to sell Hus Forbi. He is usually standing and selling for around 11 hours every day, in front of Ikea, where he often eats when he gets hungry. In the evening he returns to Copenhagen to one of the few bodegas he feels welcome in, and then finally goes to sleep in one of his five ‘secret’ sleeping spots in the city. Understanding how he uses the spaces of the city where he eats, drinks, works and sleeps in, made it clear how dependent the homeless are on having a variety of different places available for them to use. The interview was furthermore helpful in giving an understanding of his avoidance to use any of the homeless shelters (both municipal and run by public organisations), instead choosing to sleep on the street as he finds more privacy and safety there.

Maja and Jesper, social workers from Hjemløseenheden Maja and Jesper are two social workers that work for Copenhagen Municipality’s social services department at The Homeless Unit on Griffenfeldsgade, in the former Sankt Joseph Hospital building. Their jobs entail a combination of half the week at the office and reception, where they are processing walk-ins and telephone cases of homeless people who need assistance for matters relating to housing, social and psychological help, payments from the state and more. The other half of the week they spend going out to their affiliated shelters and institutions to meet with their clients, the homeless. It was rather obvious to interview them because they both are in close contact with the homeless on a daily basis and works with assisting the them in their varying problems. They both have knowledge and experiences of how different the homeless use different spaces, but from the perspective of someone working to support the homeless, instead of being homeless themselves. The interviews with both Maja and Jesper took place separately, with Maja having a more structured interview held in the consultation space at The Homeless Units reception, lasting for around one hour.

12

“Om Hus Forbi”, Hus Forbi. accessed December 14, 2017. http://www.husforbi.dk/om/hus-forbi/.

7

Jesper on the other hand was spoken to whilst biking to and visiting different homeless organisations that he is affiliated to, as a kind of city walk lasting for one hour. These interviews highlighted the potential tensions and issues that a homeless may face if referred to through the public system, and at the same time were useful in understanding why they may choose to avoid using the municipal spaces and offers.

The Right to The City

A fact that seems to be clear in all of my sources is that it doesn't look like things will be getting better for the homeless of Copenhagen in the near future. Most of the numbers in the SFI report are pointing to the wrong direction, and based on personal experiences both Allan and Rani don't express much faith in the public institutions dealing with homeless people. When asked about about the shelter at Hillerødgade, Allan mentions that he would never stay there as it is a terrible place, but at the same time mentions how the social workers there ‘do a fucking good job.’13 This is a kind of paradox that in spite of the public support and employees doing a good job to support the homeless, the users experiences of the institutions are often quite negative. The answer could be found in some of the same structures of society that also makes it increasingly difficult for the homeless to find dwelling places in the public space.

In his text from the right to the city from 2012, David Harvey revisits the notion taken from an essay of the same name written by Henri Lefebvre in 1968. Harvey introduces his text by concluding how in spite of much political talk about human rights and a better world, the right of private property trumps everything else in present day society.14 As it is clear that as the homeless literally are defined by their lack of private property, this puts them as a group in a very unfortunate position in society living at the mercy of those who own the increasingly privatised spaces of the city. As the urban process and thereby renewal and shaping of public and private spaces according to Harvey is controlled by capital interests, a pattern of the spaces available to the homeless starts to appear. On one hand they are being discriminated by authorities and displaced from certain parts of the city (inner city), while at the same time offered shelter and support in other areas (Nordvest, Vanløse, Amager), and there is an obvious difference in the property value and commercial interests at work in those different places.15 It is a bit uncanny how accurately it describes the present situation when Harvey quotes what Friedrich Engels wrote about city renewal in 1872. ‘No matter how different the reasons may be, the result is always the same; the scandalous alleys disappear to the accompaniment of lavish self-praise by the bourgeoisie on account of this tremendous success, but they appear again immediately somewhere else’16 If we replaced scandalous alleys with the words homeless people in the quote above, it would be a very precise description of how homeless are actively removed from certain public places but are not 13

Andersen, Allan. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 28, 2017.

14

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 1

15

Brandt, Preben. Byen og social ulighed. (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2009), 30

16

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 10 8

being dealt with properly in terms of increasing their wellbeing, with the hostile design of homeless spikes in London as the prime example of shameless displacement.

Harvey rhetorically asks if the inhabitants of cleared slums in Mumbai will get a compensation for being removed from their homes,17 but as this question to some extent implies an informal home ownership it still exists within the notion of right of private property. Which right does the homeless then have when they are removed from a public space that they definitely don't own? This is where the notion of the right to the city, comes into play, as described by Lefebvre as a universal right to urban life.

Lefebvre wrote the essay in the moment of the ’68 protests in Paris, partly against brutal projects of city renewal. He criticises the how the city is structured for providing a setting for consumption and tourism, and this critique is maybe more relevant than ever today, and quite obvious in Copenhagen. As the public spaces are changed to accomodate for the visitors and consumers instead of those who inhabit, a radical new way of structuring the city is called for by Lefebvre.18 A new praxis of urban life favouring the oeuvre instead of consumption, structuring the city based on creative participation instead of lifestyles predetermined by the ruling class. In reference to Nietzsches superhuman, Lefebvre writes ‘this new man emerging from industrial production and planning has been more than disappointing. There is still another way, that of urban society and the human as oeuvre and not a product’19 This means that the urban and the social practise of our lives are connected and together holds a liberating potential, and as the homeless in this sense are the closest thing to non-consumers in the city, they can be interpreted as being the closest to the oeuvre, and the way they use the city could be described as much more creative, than the rest of its citizens. The problem is though that they are completely restricted by social structures from participating in shaping the city and thereby unable to practise the right to the city in todays society. Harvey describes the right to the city as ‘it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city more after our heart’s desire’20 , and this is in my eyes something the homeless have the potential to do, but not the possibility.

As the agent of forming and planning the city, Lefebvre has little sympathy left for architects where he describes a situation that as an architecture student, I find all too often true. ‘Architects seem to have established and dogmatised an ensemble of significations, as such poorly developed and variously labelled as function, form, structure, or rather, functionalism, formalism, and structuralism. They elaborate them not from significations perceived and lived by those who

17

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 11

18

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 158-159 19

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 149 20

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 1 9

inhabit, but from their interpretation of inhabiting.’21 To me this sums up why it is important as a contemporary architect to analyse and learn from the experience of other people, and their inhabitation of certain spaces.

Analysis Throughout my investigations and interviews, I realised that the analysis could easily become a shallow generalisation and due to finding out the extensive nature of the spaces mentioned and utilised by both the homeless and relevant stakeholders here in Copenhagen. This extensive nature arises from the fact that each homeless person subjectively uses the city based on their own personal needs and desires, where of course some of these spaces overlap. I have chosen to therefore take a qualitative approach for the analysis, where I will focus instead on three specific and different spaces that I have learned about through the interviewees experiences combined with my own observations.

The first spatial analysis is on Christianshavn Torv, as a public space in the city that some of the homeless use as a hang out and gathering spot. The second is on Cafe Heimdal, as a bodega and ‘public livingroom’ used by Allan. The third analysis is on the Kirken Korshærs homeless shelter, as a place to sleep.

I will use my understandings of the concepts behind Behaviorology, as a method to analyse and describe the environment of these three spaces in combination with the interviews (empirical), my own observations and the texts by Lefebvre and Harvey (theory). I will analyse the how the different actors such as material, space, buildings, social and political structures behave in relation to each other creating the experienced space.

The public space: Christianshavn Torv Christianshavn Torv can be described as one of Copenhagen’s most lively and diverse urban spaces, recognised as the main public square in the old working class neighbourhood of Christianshavn. As a bustling square during most hours of the day, it is used by a diverse range of people - from the commuters of the city to tourists. Amongst many of the homeless, it is known as a regular gathering and hang out place for some of the homeless in the city.

It seems as though the square functions more as a transit zone, than a place that invites you to stay for a longer period of time. Torvegade, towards the south-easterly edge of the square (fig. 1), can be characterised as a very busy main street with constant traffic and noise that travels to the square from the movement of buses, cars and cyclists in both directions. Facing the north westerly end of the square on Overgaden Oven Vandet is there car and cyclist traffic permitted. This is where the cars are driving over old cobblestones alongside the canals. The other main contributor of traffic and noise pollution towards the square is the commuter flow sprawling out from the metro (Christianshavn station), where many commuters use the square as a transit zone to their next destination.

From multiple visits to the square I have often observed homeless gathering and sitting in the square especially by the Greenlander monuments (fig. 2). The monuments seem to be also enjoyed by bypassing tourists taking photos or others 21

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 152 10

enjoying a seat by the sculptures. There can be found different opportunities to sit at the square, narrowed down to four types of seating: 1x Copenhagener bench in painted dark green wood, 8 x carved stone benches, 1x large granite seating slab by the bus stops facing Torvegade and the benches fixed to the 3 x Greenlander monuments closest to the Super Brugsen. During the afternoon the most occupied seats at the square are the seating around the Greenlander monuments carved by Danish sculptor Svend Rathsack, which have been there since 1938 and potentially adds a symbolic value to the many greenlandic homeless in the area. The robustness of the granite monuments invites many to rest their backs up against the sculptures whilst seated and can be understood as a quality for the homeless using the square. A seller from Hus Forbi had mentioned to Rani that one of the main reasons she really liked to sit with her back against the sculptures was that ‘no one was behind you.’22 I had learnt that for many of the homeless, a sense of security is of high importance, so to some extent provides possibility to protect your back on the monuments at least a sense of security.

In the interview with Rani, I found out that many of the homeless tend to seek company and people of their own kind so they can speak their own language and also mix with people whom they share interests with, whether that is smoking hash or drinking beer.23 It seems that in the public space of Christianshavn Torv that some of the needs of the homeless are accommodated for, where they able to enjoy activities such as drinking, socialising, smoking and bringing their dogs relatively undisturbed. According to Lefebvre this use would be defined as a quality. ‘Would not specific urban needs be those of qualified places, places of simultaneity and encounters, places where exchange would not go through exchange value, commerce and profit?’24 These kind of socialising behaviours are taking place over a longer period of time and require a toilet close by. The access to a public toilet on the square, a combined pissoir and disabled toilet block facing Torvegade next to the bus stops, seems to be another attractive aspect for the homeless users of the square. It functions as a kind of gesture from the city, that they can enjoy the square knowing that there is an accessible toilet. It is one of the very few free public toilet spots in Copenhagen, where Rani associates the cities other commercial toilets that are pay for use as an ‘issue if you want to make it nice for homeless people to be in a place’.25 The masses of bike racks allocated mainly around parts of the square could be read as a kind of soft barrier or demarcation between the public and homeless hang out spots in the square (mainly around the greenlander monuments) and the commercial interests surrounding the square with Super Brugsen on the one side and some small businesses along Dronningensgade (a bakery, bicycle store, homewares shop..). This seems to work in favour of both parties, as for one it doesn’t seem to impact the businesses negatively, with the homeless using mainly an area of the

22

Henriksen, Rani. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 7, 2017.

23

Henriksen, Rani. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 7, 2017.

24

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 148 25

Henriksen, Rani. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 7, 2017.

11

square that isn’t in the direct view or entrance of a businesses window and is instead in front of Super Brugsen, a standard supermarket even used by the homeless to buy food and beer.

The square is in my view a public space successfully claimed by the homeless, providing them the opportunity to hang out amongst other people and not somewhere hidden away. The character of the square as a transit zone, alongside with the lack of commodification of the centre where the homeless often stay, is the determining factors enabling a proximity of different classes without major conflicts. The physical closeness of the diverse users of the square brings forth a slight possibility for solidarity and the architecture enables this. As Atelier Bow-Wow states on the importance of public space ‘if you want to experience the warmth of a group or empathise with others you don’t know, it is first necessary to share a time, a location.’26

The Bodega: Cafe Heimdal, Mimersgade The space that I met Allan for the Interview in Context and where he likes to hang out in is Cafe Heimdal, a bodega located in outer Nørrebro. The bodega is thought to be over 100 years old, making it one of outer Nørrebro’s oldest places to drink and grab a small bite to eat. Entering inside at around 15.00 on a Sunday there are many middle age to elderly people drinking and socialising, in a place that is open for business 7-2am each day. There is very much a local vibe to the place, where Allan cheerfully greets some familiar faces.

The very distinct atmosphere of Cafe Heimdal as a bodega brings with it also some spatial and material qualities. From the street view on Mimersgade (fig. 3), the bodega is characterised by wooden signage and dark tinted windows, so one can not see who or what is going on inside from the street level, in authentic danish bodega style. This feeling of “browness” also extends to the inside, where you find wooden panels covering both the ceiling and the walls and that the feeling of time inside is of another27. The tinted windows helps to create an intimacy for the regulars, that they can enjoy more the space inside and what is happening.

From the perspective of a visitor, the interior space of Cafe Heimdal is reminiscent of a domestic space where different objects and furnishings decorate the bodega, creating a homely and unpretentious atmosphere for the customers. Close to the bar there is a glass cabinet displaying different trophies and people can sit up at the bar on the barstools in front of the bartender, who is a friendly and very cheerful woman in her 60’s. The chairs that the customers can sit on are old wooden chairs that one can see have probably existed there since the bodega opened many years ago. As a place that people come to not for the way it looks but for the qualities inside such as socialising in a non judgemental environment, inexpensive drinks and food and where smoking and dogs are permitted indoors, these are some aspects that Allan can appreciate (fig. 4).

26 27

Tsukamoto, Yoshiharu, and Kaijima, Momoyo. Behaviorology, Atelier Bow-Wow. (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 14 Hørdom, Luna Signe. “Cafe Heimdal”, accessed December 18, 2017. http://www.kulturarv.dk/1001fortaellinger/da_DK/cafe-heimdal 12

For Allan, he feels welcome at Cafe Heimdal for many different reasons. As a place he usually comes to most days after work for Hus Forbi, he says that he is grateful that he can charge his mobile here without anyone saying anything to him28 and not to mention the hospitality and respect the regulars and workers show towards him, despite the stigmas associated with being homeless. A memory of a negative confrontation on a Friday evening of a drunken customer towards Allan led to him remembering how grateful he was of the many friends and workers at Cafe Heimdal who defended him. ‘No no no Allan is welcome here’, they said. However, Allan stands in a privileged position as a homeless because he is sober and well spoken. It is probably not everyone like Allan who would be accepted into a number of places around the city, where he is highly regarded amongst the homeless community and has adequate social skills to navigate in with all kinds of people in different social spheres.

As a homeless who has quite a structured daily routine with his work obligations for Hus Forbi, Allan mentions of the times where he also used to come to Cafe Heimdal around 7am, while he waited for his clothes to be washed across the road where a laundromat used to be. He recalls that it was a perfect combination, that he could sit in the warmth and have a coffee by the window at Cafe Heimdal and at the same time look out to the laundromat, to keep an eye on his washing. Around a year ago, the laundromat was converted into a local cafe and wine bar. Now there is probably one less space which Allan grew fond of using in the area, and not on the basis of consumption. Would someone like Allan be welcome there? Harvey writes that it is all too common in todays society that the ‘quality of urban life has become a commodity for those with money’29 .

The standard behaviours taking place in a bodega such as the acts of smoking and drinking can be understood to create the right atmosphere for Allan. Already when one walks into the bodega, everything inside immediately smells like a combination of cigarettes and alcohol so in the perspective of a homeless no one would be able to smell if you have bathed or not, and surely wouldn’t care. The loud jukebox music and chatter drowns out any acknowledgement or awareness of which kind of people are inside and what they are talking about. There is no dress code or formalities that you need to pass to enter into a place like Cafe Heimdal so for Allan he is able to come as he is, into the informality and warmth of the space.

The Shelter: Kirkens Korshær Shelter, Hillerødgade On the walking trip with Jesper from Hjemløseenheden, we had visited the well known “rough” shelter for the homeless on Hillerødgade, where Jesper works part of the time. It is run under Kirkens Korshær, a private social help organisation, that has an operation agreement with Copenhagens municipality. The three storey yellow brick shelter building is located on an industrial part of Hillerødgade, where a medical factory (fig. 5) and office building is the next door neighbours and on the other side, a road is separating the shelter from some residential apartment blocks. Following the lines of Harvey,

28

Andersen, Allan. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 28, 2017.

29

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 8 13

it must be located here as an attempt to avoid conflicting with the property value of commercial and residential buildings. The first part the factories are only operating in working hours and for the residential blocks, they have some distance from the shelter. This means potentially a reduced chance for complaints concerning the activities of and the residents of the shelter.

As this might sound harmless and like a sensible location, it is unmistakably ideologically loaded, and not really in favour of the homeless themselves. ‘The results are indelibly etched into the spatial forms of our cities, which increasingly become cities of fortified fragments, of gated communities and privatised public spaces kept under constant surveillance’30 As Harvey is originally talking about wealthy gated communities, it is easy to read the Hillerødgade shelter as such a fortified fragment, just keeping all the trouble inside instead of outside.

After walking up a few steps to the main entrance door, one is met with an institutionalised white framed and glass door into the shelter. Upon opening the door, you are confronted with a view down to one of the long corridors (fig. 6) that reminds you of a very cheap and shabby hotel. There is also main stairwell that connects the different floors in the building and just opposite this is the main reception, where Jesper mentions that there are usually 2-3 social workers responsible for each floor of the building31. The shelter is staffed 24 hours, each day. He explains that Hillerødgade is one of the very few places in Copenhagen where the homeless can drink, take drugs but also are allowed to have their dogs with them. This is a place that accepts and has room for some of the cities most vulnerable people with their addictions and/or psychological problems (double diagnosis) and the behaviours associated with this, however Allan is indifferent that despite them taking in the homeless with their addictions and problems. For him, it is a terrible place because the ‘people living there are junkies.’32 As this might sound like a harsh comment, it is a common thing that the sober homeless don’t like the addicts because they are more unpredictable and potentially violent.

The shelter offers different kinds of accomodation options to the homeless, where they can get a mattress for the night at their night cafe (open midnight until 10am) or they can pay to receive a more permanent room, where Copenhagen's Municipality subsidise the cost33 . In an article a homeless named Eva, who has a degree in archaeology from University of Copenhagen, can still clearly remember ‘how it smelt’ on her first night at the night cafe and how the smell is especially ‘bad’ in the winter months34. The mattresses in the night cafe can be found in the basement of the shelter, in a dark and small room. The mattresses are encased in a dark blue PVC covering which are easy to clean and wipe down, as these mattresses undergo heavy usage. In this space, you can find bunkbeds side by side and it is easy to imagine that the homeless who a sleeping here night after night have no privacy and have to sleep in close proximity to each other, in here and the canteen area where only 30 people can be. Rani had mentioned that the feeling of safety is of most important to 30

Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (New York: Verso, 2012), 9

31

Interview in Context with Jesper at Hillerødgade, as quote from memory as I was unable to record inside the shelter.

32

Andersen, Allan. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 28, 2017.

33

Rasmussen, Maja. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, December 1, 2017.

34

Lauritzen, Kristian. “Rygeheroin og Meyers Bageri”, accessed December 18, 2017. https://foljeton.dk/49929/rygeheroin-og-meyers-bageri.

14

the homeless and this is part of the reason why someone like Allan refuses to sleep in shelters, because as he puts it, he wants to wake up the next morning with all of his stuff besides him.35 Visiting the shelter during the day at around 1pm, I observed that there were very few residents or users in house in the common areas such as the corridors, canteen area, even in the back courtyard where there are many opportunities to sit outside. As an emergency shelter, it made sense that the homeless would mainly come here to only sleep somewhere of out need and necessity, rather than by choice and instead leave the shelter to get space during the day, to spend their daytime in the city before returning again in the evening to try and sleep. From the perspective of the homeless, the interior spaces of the shelter can be characterised by very institutional and cheap materials and objects. The long and sterile corridors used by everyone in the shelter could be any generic corridor from an institution or a cheap hotel, indirectly emphasising the systematic tendencies of the welfare state as this literally is the nightmare version of Le Corbusiers’ machine-á-habite.

Jesper acknowledges that the interior of the building could be much better and that there is ‘bad sound proofing’, attributed by the paper thin walls and doors, which means that ‘everyone can hear all the shouting and noise between both the rooms and floors.’36 This is probably what makes Hillerødgade such a notorious place amongst the homeless.

The obvious dangers of piling together the most mentally vulnerable people in a building without real privacy. Everyone can hear, smell and feel everything going on on the building which creates a bad cycle of stress and anxiety. ‘At the shelter there is drugs, alcohol and psychological illness. The human behaviour becomes impossible to determine’ says Eva, when she compares it to her time living in warn torn Afghanistan where the framework according to her was more tangible and predictable than at Hillerødgade.37

Conclusion The homeless can be understood as a having different needs and need a different set of spatial qualities than the normal city dweller. With the homeless situation in Copenhagen, the quality spaces available to the homeless are very limited / diminishing in the cityscape due to primarily economic and political factors. As a vulnerable group of people, the wellbeing of the homeless highly depends on the possibilities of finding domestic qualities in the spaces that they use the city, but it is obvious that the structural forces behind the city development have very limited understanding and interest in the welfare of the homeless. Often the homeless are forced to use spaces not comfortable for them, out of bare physical needs og warmth and shelter, but sometimes they find specific places that quite randomly are suited for specific activities.

As the homeless seen from a capitalist perspective have no rights of private property, they are a weak political group, with not much claim to their cause or the public space. But introducing the notion of the right to the city thus legitimises

35

Andersen, Allan. Interview by Amy Roberts. Interview in Context. Copenhagen, November 28, 2017.

36

Interview in Context with Jesper at Hillerødgade, as quote from memory as I was unable to record inside the shelter

37

Lauritzen, Kristian. “Rygeheroin og Meyers Bageri”, accessed December 18, 2017. https://foljeton.dk/49929/rygeheroin-og-meyers-bageri.

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their claim on the urban life as a human right. Interpreting the homeless use of the city as a social practise of the oeuvre suggest a radical potential in seeing the structures and spaces of Copenhagen from their perspective.

Behaviorology brings about an immediate shift in subjectivity, inviting many dierent elements together and calling into question who or what may be the main protagonist of a space.’38 Through my analysis I learned that at Cafe Heimdal the atmosphere might be the active agent welcoming Allan, while at Hillerødgade shelter the lack of resources creates a house full of stress and anxiety. At Christianhavns torv though, it seems like the homeless themselves play the main role, by actively claiming and using the space on their own premises.

As the right to the city is a collective right, the first step for designers, architects and planners must be understanding the people who truly inhabit the city, the homeless, and I have a strong feeling that a city of spaces accommodating for the well being of the homeless would be a much better city for all of us to live in.

38

Tsukamoto, Yoshiharu, and Kaijima, Momoyo. Behaviorology, Atelier Bow-Wow. (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 14 16

Primary References Harvey, David. “The Right to the City” in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. New York: Verso, 2012.

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities. Translated by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

Tsukamoto, Yoshiharu, and Kaijima, Momoyo. Behaviorology, Atelier Bow-Wow. New York: Rizzoli, 2010.

Secondary References Stalder, Laurent, et al. “Behaviorology” in Atelier Bow-Wow, A Primer. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013.

Benjaminsen, Lars. Hjemløshed I Danmark 2017. National Kortlægning. Copenhagen: VIVE, 2017. https://pure.sfi.dk/ws/files/923630/Hjeml_shed_i_Danmark_2017.pdf Brandt, Preben. Byen og social ulighed. Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2009.

Articles / Background “Monumenter og kunst i byen”, Københavns Kommune. Accessed December 18, 2017. http://kk.sites.itera.dk/ apps/kk_monumenter/index_ny.asp?lang=dk&mode=detalje&id=174 Hørdom, Luna Signe. “Cafe Heimdal”, Accessed December 18, 2017. http://www.kulturarv.dk/ 1001fortaellinger/da_DK/cafe-heimdal Lauritzen, Kristian. “Rygeheroin og Meyers Bageri”, Accessed December 18, 2017. https://foljeton.dk/49929/ rygeheroin-og-meyers-bageri.

“Om Hus Forbi”, Hus Forbi. Accessed December 14, 2017. http://www.husforbi.dk/om/hus-forbi/.

Justice, Alexandra. “Regeringen tillader at smide hjemløse helt ud af kommuner: »Begyndelsen på en heksejagt«”, Accessed December 19, 2017. https://www.b.dk/nationalt/regeringen-tillader-at-smide-hjemloese-helt-ud-afkommuner-det-er-begyndelsen-paa Søndergaard, Britta.“Hjemløse kvinder mangler hjælp til at komme væk fra gadens hårde liv”, Accessed December 18, 2017. https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/hjemloese-kvinder-mangler-hjaelp-tilkomme-vaek-fra-gadens-haarde-liv

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Figure 1: Christianshavn Torv facing out to Torvegade, the busiest end of the square.

Figure 2: The homeless gathering around and at the Greenlander monuments at the square.

18

Figure 3: Cafe Heimdal from Mimersgade. Wooden signage, tinted windows, unassuming from the street.

Figure 4: Interview in Context with Allan at Cafe Heimdal. He can charge his phone and devices, smoke and drink a beer in the warmth, but there is also a very domestic and laid back atmosphere in the most unpretentious way.

19

Figure 5: Hillerødgade Homeless Shelter (building on the left) in context.

Located in an industrial outer part of the city next to factories, on the right.

Figure 6: One of the corridors inside Hillerødgade. Institutional, Cheap, Flimsy and anxiety-inducing.

20

Figure 7: Personal mapping of spaces of the homeless

21

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