A Different View of Denmark

On Wednesday I had my final field study with my Service Learning Seminar. Our professor had arranged a tour of Copenhagen given by a representative of an organization called Voices of the Streets, which offers tours of the city given by people who are homeless (a pretty incredible concept).

Before I describe the things I learned, I will add a disclaimer that there were certain bits of information that she shared which left many new questions in our minds. During our debriefing session afterwards, my classmates and I agreed that while we learned a lot, we wished we could have learned more about the causes of homelessness, who makes up the homeless population in Denmark (Danes vs. immigrants; age; gender), or what types of resources are most needed. In fact, after the first 2 stops on the tour, her descriptions basically became just general information about Copenhagen rather than information about Copenhagen in the context of homelessness. Some of her facts conflicted with the things we'd learned in our classes (interestingly, she tended to portray Denmark in a more positive light), but still, I learned a lot. I will explain the things exactly as she shared them, and will add my own perspective at the end.

Church building where one can get a place to eat and relax

We met our tour guide, who I will call Mary, in Christianshavn and started off down one of the side streets. Along our walk, she told us a few facts about homelessness in Denmark: Apparently there are roughly 5,000 homeless people (who are registered/counted by the government), though the number is likely very much higher now that Denmark's borders have been opened to other EU countries. There are also more homeless people in Denmark during the summer months (which makes sense because of the horrible winter weather).

According to Mary, many homeless people are foreigners and she is actually from Sweden. The Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Greenland, and Denmark) have an agreement by which they help to take care of each other's disadvantaged populations, and as a Swede, Mary is offered government support like housing and food in addition to help from private organizations (often churches). However, private resources are strained and have been in particularly high demand now that the borders are open, which has caused many homeless people from poorer countries (i.e. Poland) to enter Denmark. At our first stop, a building where tea/coffee/bread and a cool/warm (depending on the time of year) place to rest are provided to 80-100 homeless people at a time, Mary said that Polish homeless people often come in and sit in the building all day, taking all the space and food. This causes a clash between the different groups and has led to a lot of frustration.

A "bath house"

Mary also described the process of trying to get housing, which one can do if they agree to check in with a government social worker. She said that often what happens is that someone gets an apartment, but then gets lonely (after having lived with so many of their friends on the streets) and invites people over for a party, which gets out of hand and results in getting kicked out. Throughout her descriptions, Mary very openly talked about the problem with alcohol abuse that most homeless people have. When I asked about whether she thought that people developed substance abuse problems before becoming homeless or afterwards she said that she didn't believe they were related.

As we continued our walk away from the church building, we learned about the places that one can go to get a shower and use a clean bathroom. Bathrooms were one thing that Mary commented on multiple times and explained to us just how often homeless people have to worry about finding a facility where they are permitted.

Newspapers

The final piece of information that Mary shared was about a government funded program that gives homeless people the chance to register to sell newspapers. They are given an ID card and a supply of papers, which they sell and are given the portion of the money that would go for profit. I had never heard of such a program before and thought it was a genius idea! All of my classmates had seen the paper-sellers before (I hadn't) but had not known that the people selling them were homeless.

Mary finished our tour in Christiania, which is a controversial part of Denmark. Originally "founded" in the 70s, the people of Christiania were squatters and took over the area, living there for years and years without paying any taxes, but still receiving government services. Though they were Danish, they felt no ties to Denmark and were basically thought of as hippies. They lived "free lives" away from the restraints of the state. Today, though the people pay taxes, there is a new controversy surrounding the area because of the well established drug use/selling that goes on there. While the people who live there claim that there are no hard drugs, that the only thing dealt/used is weed, the government (and general public) are not so sure. Regardless, there has been an increasing presence of gang involvement in the trading scene. Though the Danish government long ago decided to tolerate pot use in Christiania in small amounts (i.e. people are permitted to have 5 grams on them for personal use), there is tension growing about the policies and even the existence of Christiania.

There were TONS of playgrounds, was loud music playing all day, and pot in the air 

Many houses were painted like this one with bright colors and huge gardens 

Places had signs to tell you whether you were or were not allowed to take photos. The #1 rule is NO PHOTOS ON PUSHER STREET

A free-cycle program for clothes that was on one of the side streets

There were lots of ads for an upcoming march to legalize pot 

Here is one of the bath houses of Christiania 

hot chocolates in Christiania

It was sort of unclear why Mary took us to Christiania on the tour, but I was still very glad to have gone. I'd heard a lot about the area during my time in Denmark, but had not yet been. After we thanked Mary, our class went into the most well-known restaurant and got hot chocolates and croissants while we debriefed. Overall, we enjoyed the tour, but wished we had gotten a little more information. We also noted that Mary encouraged our questions, but then seemed somewhat put off by them (no matter what they were). We talked about the things we observed from her descriptions (i.e. her focus on finding a clean bathroom) and compared what we knew about services for the homeless in the US. All in all, it provided a very interesting view of Denmark, and allowed me to meet someone I would never otherwise have known. It also proved that even in a Welfare state, there are people who are not taken care of by the system.