Resident Assistance
Non-sedentary assistance is an incorrect and historically outdated term for assistance to the homeless , but it is still used in some cities and municipalities in Germany and Austria. There is no such state aid in Switzerland.
Criticism of the term
Since the 1970s, the term 'non-sedentary' or the designation of people without a home as 'non-sedentary' has come under increasing criticism from the specialist public. The reason for this criticism for this is, on the one hand, the one-sided focus on the individual deficits of the persons concerned. In addition, the term "not sedentary" suggests that those affected are a clearly delimitable group of people with a specific way of life. On the other hand, the problems caused by poverty in this factually multi-layered group of those affected are largely ignored in order to explain non-sedentary life. Another reason for rejecting the designation of homeless people as 'non-settlers' is the history of the origin of the term.
Conceptual history: 1970–2005: From sedentary to homeless people
The criminal law and social reforms introduced in the late sixties and early seventies of the 20th century, as well as the increasing importance of socio-educational concepts and sociological explanatory models, brought about a change in the understanding of non-sedentary assistance. Due to the onset of mass unemployment and the increase in the number of sedentary people, social factors came increasingly to bear as the cause of an unsettled situation. The one-sided consideration of the individual deficits of non-sedentary people, on the other hand, was increasingly criticized. The importance of social factors was also reflected in social law: With the reform of Section 72 BSHG in 1974, the description of the affected groups of people as 'at risk due to lack of internal stability' was replaced by the description as 'people in particular social difficulties' . In the 1980s, the concept of immobility was fundamentally questioned. As a result, the terms homeless, homeless or homeless people gradually gained in importance. They represent a collective description of a heterogeneous group of people, the problem of which varies greatly. A common feature of this diverse population group is socio-economic poverty, which manifests itself in a form of homelessness.
In 1991 the 'Federal Working Group for Non-Sedentary Aid' changed its name to the Federal Working Group for Homeless Aid. The term 'non-sedentary' is no longer used in the technical usage of the help system. The BSHG, on the other hand, continued to distinguish between non-resident persons, who fall under the responsibility of the supra-local providers, and homeless people, for whom the local social security and assistance providers are responsible.
In the transfer of the Federal Social Welfare Act to SGB XII, which came into force in 2005, the term non-sedentary is no longer officially mentioned.
Office practice
The homeless person is usually treated as a person passing through by the authorities, which is why in most places it is only at max. 3 days a month it is possible to receive a daily rate. Then he should either travel on or settle down. It is argued that every homeless person has the opportunity to get an apartment with the support of the social welfare office .
The need to travel on only pushes the problem to the next community. Cities with comparatively high rents are already no longer able to provide sufficient emergency accommodation . Nowadays, homeless people often have to lie on a mattress or sleeping pad lying on the floor as a place to sleep.
The general equation of homeless people with Berbers , i.e. those who travel through voluntarily, is problematic: This denies poverty in the form of involuntary homelessness. In this way, the state gets rid of its legal and police duty to bring homeless people to accommodation and turns it into an optional rule .
See also
literature
- Bayerischer Landesverband für Wanderdienst (Hrsg.): The non-sedentary man - A contribution to the redesign of the spatial and human order in the Greater German Reich. Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 1938
- Heinrich Holtmannspötter: Of "homeless", "homeless", and "non-sedentary." In: On the street released, Institute for Communal Psychiatry (ed.), Psychiatrieverlag, Bonn, 1996
- Jürgen Scheffler (Hrsg.): Citizens & Beggars - Materials and documents on the history of non-sedentary help in the Diakonie. Tape. 1, VSH Verlag Soziale Hilfe, Bielefeld 1987
- Eberhard v. Treuberg: Myth of Non-Sedentary Life - On the history of scientific, state and private charitable dealing with a discriminated phenomenon. VSH Verlag Soziale Hilfe, Bielefeld 1989
- Wolfgang Ayaß : Homeless people under National Socialism. Booklet accompanying the traveling exhibition of the Federal Homeless Aid Association , Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-922526-64-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the emergence (and disappearance) of the term "non-sedentary" cf. Wolfgang Ayaß : " Vagabonds, hikers, homeless and non-sedentary": a short history of the concept of help for the homeless , in: Archive for Science and Practice of Social Work 44 (2013), pp. 90-102.