Homeless people in wealthy Switzerland share their stories

Marco tells of violent episodes in past years, drug addiction and repeated stays in psychiatric institutions Thomas Kern/swissinfo.ch

Even in a welfare state like Switzerland more and more people are struggling to find somewhere to live. Most emergency shelters are full. Why is this happening?

It’s late January on a Thursday afternoon in Bern, but it feels like spring. In a quiet neighbourhood street, a man sits on a bench in front of the Kirchliche Gassenarbeit, a drop-in centre run by an ecclesiastical street work association that supports the homeless. He is drinking a beer and squinting in the sunlight. Rock music plays from a nearby speaker.

By way of introduction, the man points to his dog and says, “His name’s Rabauke (roughneck), and I’m Zwerg (dwarf). That’s what they call me on the streets.”

Eva Gammenthaler, who works at the drop-in centre, knows Zwerg well. “He often comes to us,” she says. “Twice a week, people in need can come by for one or two hours to get warm, eat and drink something, stock up on clothes and sleeping bags, and get advice. Sometimes up to 80 people visit us in one afternoon. When the sun shines, like today, it’s fewer.”

Eva Gammenthaler Thomas Kern/swissinfo.ch

Zwerg, with his pointed goatee, hoodie and black leather jacket, has picked up some dog food for Rabauke. “Yesterday I turned 48,” he says. He used to work as a ship mechanic, travelling the world. Since then, he has ended up homeless from time to time, although he’d prefer not to say why. “Too painful,” he says.

He has lived in a trailer park for the past few years, but he was recently kicked out. Sometimes he stays with friends, every now and then he has to sleep rough. “That’s really not OK,” Zwerg says, but he also doesn’t like staying in emergency shelters. “You just get robbed there. And dogs aren’t allowed.”

Gammenthaler confirms that this is a problem. Zwerg is not the only homeless person sharing his life with a four-legged friend. Drop-in centres such as the Kirchliche Gassenarbeit in Bern have long been calling for more sleep locations – without admission criteria – to become available for homeless people.

Increasing demand

The city of Bern has three emergency shelters, with a total of 87 beds. Since 2021, the demand has consistently increased. It is the same in Zurich, Basel and Geneva. “In the past, if there was no place available in Bern, we would pay the train ticket for a person to travel to another city,” Gammenthaler says. 

That is barely possible anymore because most other places also have no space. According to a 2022 studyExternal link conducted by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), there are an estimated 2,200 homeless people in Switzerland. It is the first in-depth study to deliver such statistics.

Gammenthaler notes that there is an increasing demand for the services provided by the church-run association she works for, “especially since the pandemic”. In addition to the afternoons when they are open, the employees of the drop-in centre make their way around the streets, sharing clean goods and hygiene products, as well as food and accommodation vouchers. “Among those in need I always see faces I’ve never seen before,” she says. 

But how is it possible for people to become homeless in a prosperous country such as Switzerland? “There are a number of factors that lead to homelessness,” she explains. It often starts with a stroke of bad luck: an illness, separation, losing a job, a death in the family. “After that, things can go downhill very fast.”

Just how fast can be illustrated by what happened to Maria (not her real name). She says she worked her whole life as a cleaner or as a kitchenhand in restaurants. During the Covid pandemic, her steady contract was terminated. She continued to work casual jobs, but it became more and more difficult to pay her bills and health insurance, public transport costs, and her new glasses.

Finally, she was no longer able to pay her CHF800 ($905) monthly rent. “So I moved out,” Maria says. She didn’t want to risk going into debt. At first, she stayed with a friend. For the past three months she has been staying at the emergency shelter, “Sleeper”.

Maria is well-groomed. She carries a handbag in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. She doesn’t look like a person who lives on the streets. “I can barely bring myself to say that I am homeless,” she says.

She doesn’t want to complain. “You just have to adapt.” The most difficult thing for her is that people are always smoking in the shelter, and that she has to kill time every evening until 10pm when it opens.

For that reason, she is grateful that there are other places, such as the Kirchliche Gassenarbeit and other drop-in centres, where people can get warm and eat something for little cost. Maria is currently looking for a job. With help from the unemployment office, she receives CHF2,200 a month. “I hope I’ll find a new room soon,” she says.

“The path out of homelessness is often rocky for those affected,” says Eva Gammenthaler. “Not just because of increasing costs and the already competitive housing market.” Swiss bureaucracy puts many hurdles in the way, she says. “You constantly have to fulfil new requirements in order to receive support.”

‘Institutionally aggrieved’

For people with addictions or psychological illnesses it is especially difficult to meet the demands. Others have no residency status. According to the FHNW study, 61% of homeless people are “sans papiers”, or undocumented, and therefore have no legal right to social assistance.

And then there are those who have no trust in state institutions and deliberately choose not to ask for support. Gammenthaler calls them the “institutionally aggrieved”.

This is the case for Marco, 42, wearing a blue knitted cap. He walks into the drop-in centre, pulling an old newspaper cart, and asks if he can have a camping mat. For the past couple of years he’s been “doing the streets again”, as he puts it.

He tells of violent episodes in past years, drug addiction and repeated stays in psychiatric institutions. His stories are fragmented and he often becomes confused.

“On the streets, you are at least left in peace; that’s the good thing about being homeless,” he says. Despite that, he is hoping for a new beginning. He wants a job and, of course, a place to live.

He pulls small tubes out of his jacket pockets. “These are samples from the pharmacy,” he says, and holds out hand cream, face cream and toothpaste. “I want to take better care of myself.” For the past three nights he has at least found a dry place to sleep: under the arcades in Bern’s Old Town.

Zwerg, Marco and Maria all have different reasons for becoming homeless. What they all have in common though is that they all want to find a home as soon as possible.

‘Housing First’

“To make it easier for them, the tables should be turned,” Eva Gammenthaler argues. “The social system in Switzerland is not bad, but it focuses too much on control mechanisms.”

As a positive example she cites the concept of “Housing First” that has been successfully implemented in Finland and Vienna. Homeless people are first given a place to live, without conditions, and only then is everything else sorted out, step by step. In 2020, the Swiss city of Basel introduced such a pilot project.

“But it’s also the responsibility of society to tackle the problem,” Gammenthaler believes. “At the very least, we must bear in mind that there are people out there who depend on public shelters.”

It’s 5pm. Zwerg stands up, lifts his red backpack containing his rolled-up mat, and puts it on his shoulders. Then he heads outside with his dog, Rabauke. Where will they sleep tonight? He thinks about it for a moment and says, “We’ll find somewhere.”

Edited by Marc Leutenegger. Adapted from German by Sue Brönnimann/ts

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