In Hungary, Lifting Iron Curtain Exposes Problem of Homelessness

Dozens of homeless people drift into the railroad station as night approaches, ragged and forlorn, grateful for warmth and the anonymity of rush hour.

Similar scenes occur each day in the central stations of Bucharest, Sofia, Prague and Warsaw, and at bus terminals and subway stations.

Hundreds of Warsaw homeless settle down for the night in tunnels used by city sewer workers, and in Budapest, caves in the Buda hills are home to dozens of people.

The advance of democracy in Eastern Europe has exposed the homelessness denied for decades by communist governments, which contended such ills were found only in capitalist societies.

Sociologists, newspapers and politicians now freely acknowledge that the problem has been real for years in the Soviet bloc.

As in the West, some are alcoholics, drug addicts, mentally ill or runaway minors.

Experts say, however, that the kind of homelessness most common in Eastern Europe is rooted in problems unique to the communist system.

“In Hungary, and I suppose in other European socialist countries as well, we just don’t have the kind of social net needed to help at least a large number of those needing help,” social worker Anna Varadi said in an interview.

Because traditional communist societies officially had no unemployed, only “vagrants” and other “anti-social elements,” unemployment insurance does not exist for many of the tens of thousands recently laid off when their unprofitable state companies failed.

Hungarian officials say up to 100,000 people may be unemployed by year’s end in the painful changeover from central planning to a market-oriented economy.

In Poland, which has embarked on more rapid, radical change, some estimates reach 400,000.

Homelessness was a problem in Eastern Europe even under the old system of full employment, partly due to a lack of affordable housing in major cities that some specialists say is worse than in New York, Tokyo or Frankfurt.

Because the gap between pay and rents is being widened by economic reform, which includes abolition of housing subsidies, the worst is probably still to come.

Mayor Dan Predescu of Bucharest, Romania, said recently his office had a file of 50,000 requests for housing, including 5,000 from “people who have nowhere to stay and are currently living temporarily with relatives.”

He said home for many others is “no more than a few moldy walls” with no heat, electricity or running water, and the situation is little better in other Romanian cities.

Some East Europeans without permanent homes are divorced men forced to move in with friends or relatives after the wife was awarded the precious family apartment and custody of the children.

Young couples and their children often must share limited living space with their parents because housing is so scarce.

Adequate housing for single adults is nearly impossible to find, especially for those who earn little or have substantial family support payments, so the street is never far away.

“I ended up homeless after a divorce two years ago,” Istvan Posztan, a 50-year-old unemployed construction worker, told a visitor to a crowded, dimly lit emergency shelter that houses about 400 people on the outskirts of Budapest.

“We had a nice four-room apartment. I decided to move out without a fight; I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

The city shelter, a former military barracks, was opened in January after a vigorous campaign by humorist Andras Nagy Bando.

Nagy, 41, said he offered to help after hundreds of homeless people virtually took over one of Budapest’s two main railroad stations in days of protest.

Homelessness was a rarity in Czechoslovakia’s relatively prosperous communist society, but Prague residents have reported an increase in people with nowhere to go since an amnesty freed more than 20,000 nonviolent criminals in January.

About 10% are thought to be homeless and dozens appeared to have moved into the main railroad station by mid-February.

“You gave us freedom. Give us a job and a place to stay as well,” one said to Interior Minister Richard Sacher when he visited the station recently.

In Budapest, Nagy said the center he helped establish differs from overnight shelters by providing food and trying to get its residents back into society.

Working papers or identification are vital documents in Eastern Europe and those who have none are given new ones, Nagy said, sampling a steaming pot of potato paprikash.

Alcoholics and drug addicts are counseled by a staff of social workers and psychologists, and employed residents who have problems handling money can let the staff manage their finances.

Nagy said homelessness was a legacy of a rigid system that had fixed wages far below the cost of affordable housing for decades.

“They say in America that if you work hard you can accomplish anything,” he said. “Here, it’s ‘Work, but be prepared to accomplish nothing.’ ”