The programme, aimed at people experiencing homelessness who stay outside shelters and formal aid centres, will run until the end of February.
The organisers said earlier this week that every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon city guard teams will deliver warm blankets, sleeping bags, canned food, bread, socks and between 100 and 120 litres of nutritious soup.
This year, the patrols will also carry hygiene packages designed for women.
The deputy head of the Warsaw City Guard, Grzegorz Staniszewski, said patrols would focus on the outer districts of the city, far from standard support services.
He pointed to Wola and the Praga-Południe and Praga-Północ districts as areas where the largest number of people in a homelessness crisis live in empty buildings, makeshift shacks and tents, conditions that are very hard to survive in during colder months.
The campaign will not operate in the central Śródmieście district or in Rembertów, where the City Guard says there are no such encampments.
Caritas Poland, the Catholic Church’s nationwide charity, said that the initiative is intended for people who often do not reach shelters or soup kitchens on their own.
“‘A Little Warmth for the Homeless’ puts the emphasis on warmth,” said Janusz Sukiennik, a social projects specialist at Caritas Poland, speaking at the organisation’s Warsaw headquarters. "When someone arrives, even in uniform, the presence of another person is sometimes more important than the material gift we bring.”
He added that many people who lose family or work ties end up on the margins for more than just the winter months and may not have the strength to seek help themselves.
In those situations, he said, an outreach team with a hot meal can also bring a sense of hope.
Alongside the soup patrols, support is also offered by a Street Medical Patrol operated with the Warsaw City Guard and the “We Are Hope” Association, which brings together more than 20 doctors from different specialties.
Warsaw Deputy Mayor Aldona Machnowska-Góra appealed to residents to react when they see someone whose health may be in danger in cold weather.
She urged people not to speculate about why a person is homeless but to call the Warsaw City Guard or the 112 emergency number if they see someone in obvious difficulty, saying such calls can save lives.
She noted that the capital currently has 14 shelters, including six that offer care services, as well as two full overnight hostels and other night shelters. All of them, she said, still have free places.
For emergencies in the autumn and winter period, the city prepares additional temporary accommodation in unused schools and other public buildings equipped with beds, bedding and sanitary facilities, so that “no one will be left on the street.”
Machnowska-Góra also announced that this season Warsaw plans to open a new support and warming point on Polska Street, a hygiene and sanitation point on Stawki Street and public baths on Wenedów Street.
In the coming years, the city intends to launch a new night shelter on Nieświecka Street in the Targówek district and to expand the planned aid centre on Polska Street.
During the previous edition of “A Little Warmth for the Homeless,” more than 250 people living in nonresidential places such as empty buildings, garden plots and tents received direct help.
Volunteers and city guards handed out 4,600 tins of food, 2,900 litres of soup, around 100 wool blankets, 30 thermos flasks, 600 pairs of wool socks and personal hygiene supplies.
Małgorzata Jarosz-Jarszewska, deputy director of Caritas Poland, said the charity operates more than 80 soup kitchens across the country, which serve several thousand meals a day. These are used not only by people experiencing homelessness but also by older people and others in need.
“In winter the queues are longer, because people who somehow cope in better weather also come to us,” she said.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP