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Outside the grocery store in my suburb, the same beggar has been sitting for several years. For the first few years, I gave him money regularly, then I quit. The whole situation, which he had thought was temporary, seemed to become permanent.
He was already desperately divided when begging was new in Sweden and was still being discussed. Was it okay to give him money? Yes, he was given the conditions to survive the day and support his children in Romania. No, I only contributed to her continuing to live a half life and to obtain an insecure livelihood away from the children. Better to work for political change, right? How to influence Romania’s domestic politics from Sweden now.
i’m still desperately divided, and the issue of begging is one of the most difficult political issues I know of. “Our” beggar has become acquainted with many around here, he gets both things and money to make ends meet. Sometimes you have to repair bikes on an assignment.
He lives in a tent in the forest. I think I saw it when I was out for a walk one day for lunch, either his or someone else’s. There was a large settlement with several tents and sheds in another part of the forest, but he got to the police and they evicted him.
Many people have strong opinions on begging, but I can’t find a tolerable solution myself. I have listened to people who think that it is necessary to see that people live like this, that poverty exists. But what does it do to us? So far, I only see that we have learned to look the other way or get outright angry. I have heard from others who want to ban begging, but I don’t understand how it is going to work if we want to maintain free movement within the EU at the same time. And all the necessary labor immigration that has taken over the jobs the Swedes don’t want.
In my suburb there is a Facebook group, as with many residential areas. There, the discussion about begging quickly turned into something annoying, which is quite interesting in relation to more and more people proposing that the beggar be given work. To many it seemed an impossible double standard: giving him “work” only meant that he would be allowed to work illegally for us, without any security. Would he have a more dignified life or would he just become a low paid illegal worker (of which there are many already)? After a while, the atmosphere in the Facebook group became so difficult that those who wanted to help the beggar formed their own group.
But before that, there were two posts that I’m still thinking about. The first came from a Romanian who lives in our area (and who, for security reasons, has Swedish citizenship, housing and work). She said that it is certainly good to help an individual beggar, but you must realize that it is precisely an individual beggar. Nothing changes in principle, because he comes from a country where the poorest are many and they live even worse than a beggar outside of Konsum in Sweden. If we can help him, someone else will come.
The second arrived from a man who suggested that we raise a lot of money, maybe a couple hundred thousand, so that the beggar could really have a better life. Okay: so the next and the next will also come and want the same amount, but maybe we can go ahead and save lives while we can?
Then he got very quiet on that thread, and then the beggar got his own Facebook group.
Today I visit him and sigh that this is how he has become. You get more money for Christmas, because then we think of the poor.
“Say hi to your husband,” he yells at me, and I yell at him “thank you.” Then I go home and think there must be a more decent solution somewhere. It is so hard to find it.
Read more texts by Lotta Olsson.
