IRONIC

POLAND

Sanctuary for ‘Rainbow Youth’

Safe houses in Poland offer shelter to homeless and persecuted LGBTQ youth.

Transitions magazine
Posted in Poland
by Anna Gmiterek-Zablocka
05 Jul 2022

The Equality March in Czestochowa, Poland in 2019.

Nineteen-year-old Kamil (not his real name) suddenly found himself on the street. His parents had kicked him out of the family home after he told them he was gay. They did not want to have such a son, they told him, and didn’t care where he went.

Kamil left with literally nothing but what he had on him. “I know now that it was good that happened,” he says a few months later. “Yes, I was left ‘out in the cold’ — for a while I was homeless — but it was worth it.”

After staying with a friend for a few days, he found information online about a safe house set up for people like him — homeless people from the LGBTQ community.

There is one such crisis center — located in an apartment — operating in Warsaw at present, run and fully funded by three NGOs: the Po Drugie Foundation, the Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) and the My, Rodzice (We Parents) Association. When Kamil contacted the foundation, “They said they would do everything to help,” he says.

“After coming out, a young person often loses all their family’s support. They become an enemy, a liability, an embarrassment. Our activities aspire to offer them a sense of security and self-reliance,” said Ewa Miastkowska from We Parents when the shelter was opened.

The apartment-based center, which was launched in March 2021, can host four people at once. They must be at least 18 years of age and no more than 29. Along with young people kicked out by their parents, it has also provided shelter to trans people and gay people who were former residents of children’s homes. They learn to be responsible and work together, for example by cooking communally.

Residents who find a job make a symbolic contribution to the rent — generally a small amount, no more than 500 zloty (106 euros). The point is to teach young people the value of feeling responsible.

Kamil lived in the apartment for two months. During that time he began working in catering while also seeing a psychologist and applying — successfully — to go to college. He now lives in regular lodgings and is trying to fix things up with his parents. “The apartment really helped me, as it gave me somewhere to sleep,” he says.

The safe house has a set of rules. “Consumption of alcohol and the use of drugs are not allowed,” explains Agnieszka Sikora from the Po Drugie Foundation. “Since the apartment opened, 17 people have found a roof over their heads here. When one moves out, another moves in. There are no excessive demands. If we decide that someone’s situation is difficult, dramatic, we help.”

LGBTQ people in Poland often experience various forms of violence. The situation has been worsened by a witch hunt from the ruling party and church — such as one archbishop’s reference to a “rainbow plague.”

Parents often do not accept that their child is gay or trans. In some cases, they lock their son or daughter at home, refuse to let them meet with other people, take away their mobile phone or internet access, and cut them off from money or food — all as a punishment.

POLAND LGBTQ PRIDE MARCH

As a result, Poland has for the last three years been ranked as the worst country in the European Union for LGBTI people in the annual “Rainbow Index” published by the NGO ILGA-Europe.

In December 2021, KPH published a report, “The social situation of LGBT people in Poland,” based on research by the University of Warsaw’s Center for Research on Prejudice. One of its findings was that young people are increasingly less likely to be able to count on support from their families because the level of acceptance has fallen. Just 61% of mothers who were aware of their children’s non-heteronormativity accepted it (down from 68% in 2017). The figure is even lower for fathers, at 54% (as compared to 59% in 2017).

Domestic violence towards and homelessness among young LGBT people are widespread problems. A 2020 study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights showed that as many as one in five LGBTQ people in Europe experience homelessness during their lives.

The KPH report revealed a similar tendency. [DJ1] One in six, almost 17%, of the LGBTQ people surveyed had experienced at least one episode of homelessness, with 10% of cases lasting more than a year.

Sikora explains that those who arrive in the safe house do not always face transphobia or homophobia at home. “As a rule, these people have more than one problem to deal with, including addiction. They stop [attending school] and have emotional, family and personality problems,” she says.

The maximum initial stay in the apartment is 12 months, though this can be extended. Residents receive individual support from a mentor — a “kind soul” who provides them with day-to-day help and keeps an eye on them (making sure there are no alcohol or drugs, for example).

They also receive psychological support (individual or group therapy, depending on their needs) or assistance from a lawyer, for instance in cases where they have experienced violence. A therapist works with those with addiction problems.

There is also a career adviser. This role is especially important as these are young people, without much life experience, who are usually struggling to find their way in the job market. They frequently have no idea what they want to do and which field they can train in, and they lack skills in preparing a CV or in showcasing their strengths. They do not know how to be assertive or self-disciplined.

Importantly, they are given a support network. They meet people for whom they are not “freaks” or “deviants.” People who can advise and help, whom they can call, or if need be, can simply give them a hug when things are hard. They learn what friendship, self-dependence, and keeping one’s word means.

‘AN APARTMENT LIKE THIS CAN BE A SPRINGBOARD’

Psychologist and psychotherapist Jan Swierszcz helps run a Warsaw therapy and development center called Dobrze, że jesteś (It’s good that you’re here). Among the people he helps are those from the LGBTQ community. Swierszcz has no doubt that creating safe places for such people is extremely necessary, adding that such spaces were lacking in Poland.

“An apartment like this can be a springboard for young LGBT people that allows them to break out. They can receive community and social support, and through that, also resources for coping in life: what to sort out and how, where to go, how to get out of a crisis,” the psychologist explains.

A person experiencing violence can try to get back on track only after escaping the cycle of violence. The pain felt by a teenager discriminated against and persecuted by their family because of the youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity is the same pain felt a woman experiencing violence from an abusive husband, according to Renata Durda, the head of Niebieska Linia (Blue Line), the Polish Emergency Service for Victims of Domestic Violence, which has been operating since 1995.

“The experience of humiliation, hurt, and pain is the same, although attempts to escape might vary,” Durda says. “This is why a safe place where LGBT people can live is so important for them.”

The crisis apartment is not the only place. Since September 2001, Warsaw has also boasted another form of support for people experiencing homelessness in the form of a hostel for LGBTQ people. This was opened thanks to authorities in the capital, who set up a three-year project to fund its work.

In 2021, the Lambda Association which runs the hostel received 261,800 zloty (55,500 euros) and it will get 255,500 zloty (54,200 euros) each year in 2022 and 2023.

Warsaw’s deputy mayor, Aldona Machnowska-Gora, says that the city decided to open the hostel because it could not just stand by and watch the problems LGBTQ people were facing.

“We have a wave of calculated and planned attacks on people from the LGBT community, a wave of hate towards this group in some media, [and] anti-LGBT zones, but there have also been brazen personal attacks, for example on people wearing rainbow emblems on the streets,” she says.

Machnowska-Gora explains that the city had also received information about hateful symbols and slogans being left on the doors of same-sex families’ homes. This was what led to the decision to sign the Warsaw LGBT+ Declaration and to open the hostel. People wishing to stay there can get in contact by email or phone.

“We guarantee a stay in the hostel up to three months — which can be extended,” says hostel coordinator Sulimir Szumielewicz. “It’s important for us that people leave with the social skills to become as independent as possible.”

Who comes to the shelter? One young person showed up at the door recently carrying only a shopping bag with a toothbrush, a shirt, and a few other small items.

The hostel had operated in Warsaw previously in 2015–2016, when it was the first such facility in Central and Eastern Europe. More than 70 people stayed there at the time, including a high school student who took his final exams while living at the hostel. Unfortunately, the center was forced to close due to lack of funds.

“I came to the hostel by chance. I lived there for a few months,” says Michał (not his real name). He has no doubt that such support is a “lifesaver” for many young people and is happy it has reopened. “I found work, I started earning money — today my life has sorted itself out, somehow,” he says.

Representatives of the LGBTQ community would like to open more such hostels or apartments for “rainbow youth” in other cities. A safe house has now been launched in Poznan, run by the Stonewall Group with support from city authorities amounting to 60,000 zloty (12,700 euros). The Equality March Association from Lublin also wants to open a safe house, but as yet has no concrete plans.

In addition to the need to find funding, the other major problem is gaining the support of local authorities. The witch hunt that has taken place in recent years against the LGBT community in Poland — “anti-LGBT ideology” zones throughout the country and homophobic statements by government politicians — causes mayors to be reluctant to fund these kinds of activities out of concern about how that support might affect their election results.

The idea that led to the hostel and safe house is in fact a simple one. It is about LGBTQ people knowing that, despite their homophobic families or teachers, there are also people who are willing and able to help them. When they cannot count on their families, such support networks can be crucial.

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Anna Gmiterek-Zablocka is a journalist at Radio TOK FM, specializing in social issues including migration, domestic violence, and challenges faced by people with disabilities. She received the Grand Press Award for 2010.

Reprinted with permission of Notes from Poland; edited for style. Photo by Silar via Wikimedia Commons.