The State Policy towards the Homeless in Moldova between the ‘Left Hand’ and the ‘Right Hand’. The Case of Chișinău Shelter

Introduction

This article seeks to understand the way state policies addressing homelessness have evolved in the Republic of Moldova over the last decade. The article focuses on a case study—the Centre for the Homeless in Chișinău (hereafter, the Shelter), the only public institution in the city designed for this category of users. The Shelter embodies on a small scale the recent evolution of state policies on the homeless in this post-Soviet country. The institution applies the binary approach of the state towards marginalised people, namely the homeless. On the one hand, the Shelter (and, on a large scale, the state) undertakes the task of providing social assistance, healthcare and decent living conditions to its users, which represents the ‘left hand’ of state institutions. ^[1] The functions of this assisting (‘maternal’) approach are carried out by female employees. On the other hand, a certain number of male employees of the Shelter (especially the director and night administrators) represent the ‘hard-line’ approach by the institution and the ‘right hand’ (‘paternal’ side) of the state, imposing and enforcing discipline. It is not by chance that the quasi-absolute majority of male employees are former police officers. This binary approach of the institution and the state towards this category of marginalised people, among other groups, corresponds to a dual functionality of a public service system with regard to the groups of ‘social outcasts’, namely ‘recycling’ and ‘disposal’ of ‘human waste’, according to Zygmunt Bauman. ^[2] The ‘recycling’ function is understood by the staff of the institution (and other specialised state institutions) as an individualised approach, in which the status of a ‘homeless person’ is seen as an almost exclusive consequence of an individual process of moral and social degradation due to various personal vices (alcoholism, laziness, deviance, crime, etc.). Therefore, the ‘recycling’ of the Shelter’s users is addressed through an individualised, medical and psychosocial approach, not as a systemic phenomenon (by addressing, for example, social and economic mechanisms of ‘producing’ marginality). ^[3]

The article tries to discern, on the case of the only municipal shelter for homeless people in Chișinău, the social factors that over the last two decades have influenced the two approaches—assistance and control—of the state’s policy towards homeless people. The article examines possible regional and international influences in articulating these approaches at the Shelter. Based on an ethnographic analysis of the Shelter, the article describes the practices and norms that form the Shelter’s everyday routine which fall under the two above-mentioned approaches. In the final part, the article proposes a comparative microsocial analysis of the two living areas for homeless people— the Shelter and squatter camps—from the perspective of relations between residents and social service providers, especially the Shelter services. In conclusion, the article proposes an appreciation of the evolution of the two approaches within the Shelter in relation to state policies on disadvantaged people, depending on its two sides: the ‘left hand’ and the ‘right hand’.

The Origins of Extreme Deprivation in a Pauperised Country

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its independence (1991), Moldova has faced systemic economic difficulties, endemic poverty and low quality of governance. ^[4] The Moldovan case is compelling regarding the evolution of social services offered to marginalised people within the context of a weakening and underfinanced social welfare system, foremost including social housing, a situation that is critical in the countries of the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe. ^[5] These countries have undergone a long and difficult period of transition to liberal democracy and capitalism. ^[6] Bankruptcy and privatisation of large Soviet industrial enterprises have led to a drastic reduction in jobs and, at the same time, to the closure or privatisation of employee dorms. The fall of a massive social segment of the population below the absolute poverty line has generated the emergence of economic survival strategies and practices, including migration. ^[7] These challenges have had a severe impact on the entire Moldovan society, all the more so on people least endowed with resources.

The situation of homeless people in Moldova is aggravated by a weak social protection system, compounded by a growing pauperised population. Since the mid-2000s, the social and health protection institutions, inherited from the Soviet period, have been undergoing a process of deinstitutionalisation and financial optimisation. ^[8] Despite a reform process started in 2012 of de-institutionalisation by opening community mental health centres, state-run psychiatric institutions continue to treat a large number of patients. ^[9] Some patients who lack family support end up on the street. The incidence of people with psychiatric diagnosis among homeless people in Moldova is insignificant, especially compared with the situation in the US and the UK for example. ^[10] Further categories of de-institutionalised persons, especially former detainees and graduates of internat schools (Soviet-type youth institutions for orphans, children with psychiatric disorders and children from vulnerable families), represent a significant part of the homeless population in Chișinău.

The Chișinău Shelter. A Syncretic Tradition of Assistance and Control

In 2003, when the Shelter was opened on the outskirts of Chișinău—with the support of Western funds—the idea was highly innovative for this region while almost a century in Western societies. Originally, the Shelter’s windows were designed with bars, a detail that appeared as natural to the director, a former police employee. The representatives of the Western sponsors (namely, a Swedish development agency) strongly opposed this design feature. For them, the Shelter was supposed to be first and foremost an institution providing assistance and not exerting control over its users. This instance shows that the Shelter emerged as a result of a fragile balance between two functions: assistance and control. The tension between these two functions has remained a determinant for the entire existence of this institution.

At a time when the homeless people and other categories of ‘urban outcasts’ were approached exclusively by the police and health institutions, the Shelter was unthinkable without policing and medical components. At the state level the social services are traditionally occupied by women, and institutions of force exclusively by men, the division of labour within the Shelter is articulated by this gender divide: the assistance functions are taken up by female employees—doctors, social workers, and a psychologist—and the tasks of supervising and disciplining are assumed by male employees, all former police officers. ^[11] In Western societies, the history of social services for various categories of marginalised people (including homeless and ‘undeserving poor’) arises from a structural tension between a repressive side and an increasingly inclusive and assisting approach. The emergence and consolidation of the welfare state after 1945 led to decriminalisation and assistance of the poor and marginalised. ^[12] It was noted that during the 1980s and 1990s in the US, the UK, and other Western societies—in the context of large-scale transformation to a political, economic and social regime called ultra-or neoliberal—the approach toward the marginal and marginalised people also underwent a significant mutation. ^[13] American society set the tone when undergoing what sociologist Loïc Wacquant defined as a shift from the ‘social state’ to the ‘penal state’, by an increasing tendency to criminalisation and trans-institutionalisation of the ‘urban outcasts’. ^[14] Following this systemic transformation, repression and control over the poor and marginal groups in urban areas have become the dominant approach, while social services have increasingly been subordinated to economic rationality.

The postsocialist transition in the Republic of Moldova and other post-Soviet and postsocialist states took place simultaneously with the neoliberal transformation in the West. ^[15] The discourse of human rights and social welfare emerged in the 1990s in central and eastern European countries in the field of social services in parallel to some elements of the neoliberal model. This model was characterised, among other elements, by social spending cuts, financial optimisation and increased pressure on social services users to engage in economic activity (workfare). In this context, the Shelter appears as a syncretic combination of several traditions and approaches of assistance and control: the Soviet ‘assistance through repression’ ^[16] (subordinated to the ethical and legal constraint to work), the Western tradition of charity and social welfare that affirmed itself at the beginning of the 20^th century through the secularisation of charity services, and finally, the neoliberal model of financial optimisation and workfare. ^[17]

In this article, a reflexive and critical approach is embraced to highlight the ideological significance and latent functions of the daily practices of staff and users alike of this institution for the homeless. At the same time, the social logic of routine activities is sought to be captured, as well as institutional transformation. The principle of change is determined by the balance between different positions and factions in the institution, while also looking at the larger context of the dynamics in the social field of social services in Moldova. ^[18] This social field is itself constituted by a reforming pole, represented mainly by non-governmental social welfare organisations, logistically and financially supported by international philanthropic organisations, and by a conservative pole, represented mainly by some factions of the local authorities and of the Ministry of Social Protection (from February 2018, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection) of the Republic of Moldova.

The approach adopted here is an innovative one for the field of social sciences in Moldova, both through the studied subject (non-existent in the concerns of the social scientists in Moldova), but also due to the critical perspective that is taken. For example, only a few reference studies have been carried out on the homeless in countries of the region, mostly signed by Western authors or by researchers trained at Western universities. Chief among these are Svetlana Stephenson’s sociological research on homeless people in Moscow and Tova Höjdestrand’s anthropological work on the homeless in St. Petersburg. ^[19] Both books analyse the period of the late 1990s and the 2000s, and Stephenson’s work also includes a diachronic perspective on the Soviet policy of managing the urban marginality. Further, note should be taken of the work by sociologist Anastasiya Ryabchuk on the homeless in Ukraine (Kiev) and the research of anthropologist Bruce O’Neill on homeless people in Bucharest (Romania). ^[20] Whether sociological or anthropological, these works share a critical and reflexive approach to social and institutional practices and discourses, an approach also embraced by this study. For this research these works represent true models of critical thinking, humanistic understanding, methodological accuracy and theoretical subtlety in relation to homelessness in Eastern Europe and its post-Soviet neighbourhood. They also help us to understand the subject of this research in a regional and historical context.

Similarities of the states’ approach towards homeless people in Russia, Ukraine, and Romania and that in Moldova may seem striking in several important aspects. This similarity is understandable, taking into account the common postsocialist context. In this regional context, the case of Moldova is representative in terms of state policies towards marginal (and marginalised) people. The interest of the Moldovan case is, however, justified precisely by this regional neighbourhood on the one hand with Russia and the former-Soviet space, which still remains a model of an ‘assistance through repression’ regarding marginalised people, and on the other hand, with those countries that have recently joined the European Union and have embraced, at least formally, an approach to marginalised people inspired by the social doctrine of the European states, based on social inclusion, social cohesion and empowerment. ^[21]

A law recently adopted, aiming to regulate the social services offered to homeless people in Moldova, formalises a clear shift to this ‘European’ model. ^[22] However, in 2014, when the draft law was first submitted to public discussions, the document still used the term ‘bum’ (boschetar) for the users of these services, and the phenomenon was explained exclusively from the perspective of the individual responsibility of the people concerned, in a language reminding the Soviet disciplinary discourse about ‘social parasites’. This detail shows the speed but also the fragility of this change process.

This article proposes an institutional case study in which it examines the (formal and informal) practices in the context of the evolution of state social services towards homeless people. We shall keep in mind that homeless people constitute a heterogeneous ‘population’, consisting of several distinct subgroups, such as former detainees, graduates of internat schools, pensioners or people with disabilities. The analysis of this case, from both a contemporary and an historical perspective, captures some elements of change coming from the tension between various internal factions and reflecting a power relationship within a wider social field of social protection in this country. The users of these services are absent from the discussions on social service reforms addressed to them. There is no visible association in Moldova protecting the rights of these people. Homeless people have been and continue to be the subject of media, administrative and philanthropic discourses, a ‘population’ considered homogeneous and yet lacking any personality and agency. This study is an attempt to represent the voices of these people and to present them to public decision-makers and non-governmental organisations. Yet a comprehensive strategy aiming at helping, including and empowering these people in society remains to be done.

The Centre for the Homeless from Chișinău (the Shelter) provides nighttime accommodation (from 8.00 pm to 8.00 am), social assistance, basic medical care and food (breakfast and dinner) for up to 100 people. In more recent years, further shelters have been opened in two other Moldovan cities. In 2006, an international Catholic association opened a shelter in Chișinău for twenty users. This shelter was closed in December 2018, after the interruption of funding by international donors and the refusal of central and local governments to take ownership of this project. Some non-governmental organisations provide homeless people with soup kitchens; showers and laundry services; and set up measures to prevent HIV and tuberculosis among homeless people in Chișinău. However, these services are clearly insufficient, given the high number of homeless people, estimated at three to five thousand in the municipality of Chișinău alone.

Methodology

This analysis relies on sociobiographical data of 810 users of the Centre for the Homeless in Chișinău (the Shelter)—the only public shelter for the homeless in the city. The Shelter keeps an archive with biographical records of all shelter users from 2004 to February 2017. These records contain general information about the user’s birth date, birthplace, gender, marital status, education, professional status, work experience, last residence(s), health, relations with family and relatives, short-term and long-term objectives, work plans, and other related categories. These biographic data have been anonymised and submitted to a descriptive analysis with SPSS software. The author also conducted in-depth interviews, during a period from September 2013 to February 2017, with over ninety people (of which sixty-five homeless people, five people at risk of homelessness, and twenty professionals). From the homeless interviewees, forty-nine were men, and sixteen were women. Thirty-eight respondents were interviewed in the Shelter and twenty-seven on the streets or in squatter camps. A sustained observation also accompanied the interviews. Thematic analysis according to the ‘grounded theory’ model (analysing the distribution of thematic categories in the corpus) has been applied to narrative sources with the aid of NVivo software. ^[23] This study complies with internationally accepted ethical guidelines in sociological and social work research. The interviewer, who is the author of this research, introduced himself to interviewees as a sociologist, researcher and university teacher. The author has undertaken to keep the conversations anonymous and confidential. All participants gave written consent to participate in the research.

A ‘Catch-All Institution’

The Shelter has become a ‘catch-all institution’ for a range of categories of impoverished and vulnerable persons, not adapted to socioeconomic conditions of post-Soviet transition towards the market economy. The Shelter users are made up of several subgroups: elderly (33%); people with various disabilities 16,8%); chronically ill (7.6%); persons at various stages of alcoholism (50%); and an over-proportionate number of people who are considered to be products of public institutions, such as the justice and social protection systems, specifically prisons (23%) or internat schools (11%). In a sense, the Shelter users represent the non-assimilated surplus of social protection institutions of Soviet origin (nursing homes for the elderly and disabled, boarding schools and orphanages), which, since the mid-2000s, have been undergoing a process of deinstitutionalisation, assisted by international non-governmental organisations. ^[24] Ironically, the users from social protection institutions and those from the justice system (law-enforcement) are found together under the same roof of a hybrid institution combining the state’s binary left- and right-hand approaches of assisting and repressing.

The declared function of the Shelter is to prepare its users, at least those considered to be ‘recoverable’, for (re)integration into society, seeking to increase their adaptability and autonomy. The social workers are employed to assist the users in achieving this goal. Nevertheless, the results of the Shelter regarding the assistance of users to seek and find a job and housing have been and remain rather poor. According to the results of the survey on 810 Shelter users, only 6,6% (or 53 persons out of 810) managed to find a job, with or without the help of the Shelter staff.

The Two Faces of the Shelter. By Day and by Night

The activity of the Shelter can be divided into two parts: one during the daytime and the other at night. ^[25] Throughout the day, the social worker, the psychologist and the lawyer have the statutory function of assisting users in solving their problems (accommodation, family reintegration, job search, applying for identity documents, nursing home for the elderly, hospital admission). Yet, there are only a few persons who use such services—most of them visit the social worker only once, usually at the first admission to the Shelter.

For the overwhelming majority of users, their life at the Shelter takes place exclusively during the evening and at night, between 8.00 pm until 8.00 am. During the day, the employees of the Shelter provide individualised assistance to users. During the evening and at night the effort of the institution staff (mainly the night administrators and the doctor) is focused on imposing and maintaining control and discipline. Every evening, at 8.00 pm, all users that are present are registered. After that, they have dinner in the kitchen. Then users have some free time for hygiene and other personal needs. At 10.00 pm they go to bed. In the morning at 6.00 am, they get up. At 7.00 am they have breakfast. All users are obliged to leave the institution by 8.00 am (except for people with severe disabilities and those who are very old, for whom derogation from this rule is allowed).

The Shelter imposes a certain number of rules that its users must comply with throughout their stay in the institution, from the time they are admitted and until they leave. One of the rules that causes the most tension between the users and the night staff is the ban on alcohol consumption. Generally, modest consumption goes unnoticed. Transgression of this rule beyond a limit of common sense, with a subjective and interpretable margin depending on a case-by-case basis, leads to a reaffirmation of the staff’s authority over users. In these cases, users are required to comply with the rule and threatened with non-admittance to the Shelter at the next breach. Any form of violence among users is repressed if identified. When an employee (usually, an administrator) believes that a user will physically assault him or her, they are entitled to call the security team, who evacuate the recalcitrant people from the building. This extreme measure appears as a sort of ultima ratio (and an expression of ‘legitimate use of physical force’) ^[26] of the Shelter administrators in relation to users.

As one of the (night) administrators of the Shelter explained, strict observance of the rules would make the practical functioning of the institution unworkable. The existence of rules that are regularly disregarded, through a tacit agreement between users and staff, such as the maximum three-month stay in the institution, leads to the establishment of a tolerated margin between formal regulation and a set of ‘unwritten’ rules. However, interpretation of this margin is the exclusive prerogative of the Shelter administration and may lead to acts considered abusive or arbitrary by some users (for instance, the ban on admission, under the pretext of exceeding the three-month stay in the institution). Users have no interest in flagrantly breaching these formal rules and especially the informal ones when they want to extend their stay in the Shelter for as long as possible. All the more so as the situation of most of them who have exceeded the statutory period of stay in the Shelter, are vulnerable by definition. To make their stay at the Shelter and their daily life a little more agreeable, users resort to strategies of ‘secondary adjustments’ and various forms of ‘passive resistance’ (hidden transcript) in relation to the institution and its staff. ^[27] These strategies are part of this margin between formal and informal regulation, interpreted and used by staff and users for their benefit. Such strategies of ‘secondary adjustments’ could be smoking and alcohol consumption in the institution, or establishing an informal hierarchy by more influential users to receive some benefits at the expense of others.

The Other Side of the Institution

One of the laments confessed by several employees and administrative staff of the Shelter is that they are not able to access users’ personal database (only law enforcement institutions have access to it). By this complaint, the Shelter administration is seeking to obtain a prerogative of a law-enforcement institution so that they are capable of verifying the identity of its users (like the former screening centre managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which closed down in 2013), including and particularly confidential information (e.g. property owned, convictions, criminal and arrest records, psychiatric diagnosis and other personal data). ^[28] In the absence of access to this information, the Shelter staff is forced to formally admit the presumption of innocence and good faith to all users. However, lack of access to users’ personal data makes employees suspicious of some users, especially of those without identity papers, who are suspect ex officio. This suspicion may generate differentiated attitudes and treatments. The Shelter administration cooperates with municipal police in identifying some users suspected of being under criminal prosecution. To this end, the Shelter administration can organise, together with the police, night raids among users. Such forceful actions carried out by the Shelter administration in cooperation with the police aggravate the users’ sense of vulnerability within the institution.

Such raids have long become a routine for police forces in places inhabited by the homeless from the city. During these actions, colonies of homeless people are evacuated from their temporary homes, checked, identified and interrogated—the whole process is recorded by police and described as legitimate action. ^[29] Such actions are in part directly inherited from repressive practices of the police (militia) in the Soviet era against people accused of refusing to work (‘vagabonds’, chronic alcoholics, prostitutes), with the notable difference that ‘vagabondage’ and ‘refusal to work’ were decriminalised after the fall of the USSR in 1991. ^[30]

Stratification of the Downward Mobility. The ‘Recoverable’ and the ‘Irrecoverable’

The Shelter is stratified according to two large groups of users. Two ground floor rooms are reserved for homeless users considered ‘chronic’ and ‘irrecoverable’: people with severe physical and mental disabilities and people suffering from alcoholism. On the other hand, on the first floor of the building are situated the rooms for the users who are believed to have an increased capacity for autonomy and adaptation. Thus, the Shelter applies a tacit division of activity with regard to these two categories of users: rehabilitation (or ‘recycling’, in Zygmunt Bauman’s terms) for the first-floor users considered ‘recoverable’ and interventions of maintenance (and, implicitly, ‘removal’ from the urban public space) for the ground floor users.

Stratification and segregation of users within the Shelter is the result of the institutional order which, as mentioned above, places them in a differentiated way inside the institution, depending on their capacity to adapt and rehabilitate. Differentiation of users based on their capabilities (and, implicitly, their social background) is also due to the uncertain and provisional status of the ‘ground floor’ users in this institution. According to the Shelter’s regulation, people with disabilities (physical and mental), people infected with HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis, and drunk persons are not admitted. On the other hand, especially in winter, the Shelter staff cannot refuse accommodation to any person. Thus, the Shelter staff accepts the temporary accommodation of people with disabilities and alcohol addictions on the ground floor, without recognising their status as legitimate users of the institution and therefore tacitly refusing to develop services for this category of users. Caught in the trap of this normative conflict, the homeless with disabilities and those considered ‘chronic’ are forced to live in this institutional ‘purgatory’ and thus accept a social status and degrading living conditions that could aggravate their vulnerability.

This stratification process is also a cause and consequence of the dynamic within the users’ group. Thus, users on the first floor despise and label those on the ground floor. As for those on the lower floor, they accept their subordinate status in relation to their mates on the first floor. Under strictly controlled conditions by the staff, mobility is possible, both downwards and upwards. Nevertheless, for most users qualified as ‘irrecoverable’ access to the upper floor—and thus to a higher status and, consequently, to better living conditions—is perceived by the staff and users as unlikely. For people with severe disabilities, such mobility is prevented by infrastructure conditions of the building since it has no elevator. However, among the upper floor residents, there were at least three users with disabilities (with reduced mobility). Their increased capacity for autonomy and cooperation prompted the Shelter administration to accept an exception in their case.

Stratification of users is also visible on the first floor. Besides separating users by gender (women and men) in different rooms, there are also differences regarding comfort in the rooms. Thus, rooms with a smaller number of beds are occupied by persons with ‘seniority’ and those that have a closer relationship with the Shelter staff (due to the fact, among other things, that they have worked or are working at the institution). Those living in crowded rooms, generally inhabited by users who were recently admitted, are considered more difficult to deal with (many of them former detainees). According to some Shelter users who do not have any experience of detention as well as to some employees, former detainees bring specific socialisation patterns acquired in prison, which they reproduce in the Shelter. Fragments of interviews with two homeless persons—one conducted within the Shelter, while the other outside it (the location of the interview influences, as a rule, the way respondents express their attitude to the institution)—illustrate the relations between Shelter users according to their previous social status:

Researcher: What about your life here, what relationships do you have with others in the Shelter?

Respondent: The relations are very good and even with those who were released from there [jail]; they all just have a very good attitude to me. There are some people who come and stay two weeks and the former offenders do not let them live here. They bring all their manners from prison to the Shelter, but they fail. Yet the relations are generally good. People are good. But you know the expression: the black sheep of the family.^[31]

And another testimony, given outside the Shelter:

Researcher: But do you know that there is a Centre for the homeless [in Chișinău]?

Respondent: Yes, I do. I have been there.

Researcher: And how is it there?

Respondent: I ran away from there and do not want to ever go back. Do you know why? I will tell you frankly. There are too many former offenders. They impose their order. Five or six of them can attack a man at the same time, beat him and nothing will happen to them. […] What do I need such a life? Here, on the contrary, I feel normal. I am a free man here.^[32]

Therefore, relations of mutual assistance and solidarity between users on the first floor generally overlap these demarcation lines based on a social criterion (and, in part, on gender). The inward and outward mobility in the Shelter is the highest in the most crowded rooms (with reduced comfort as well), while mobility is the lowest in smaller rooms (and more comfortable) inhabited by more disciplined users and thus more motivated to stay in the institution for as long as possible. This phenomenon seems paradoxical since one would generally expect the most disciplined users who are most loyal to the staff, to be most successful, for example in finding a job or accommodation outside the Shelter. In fact, these privileged users, who have an intermediate status between the other users and the Shelter administration, can extend their stay indefinitely (despite the formal regulation) until a more appropriate solution is found.

From the ‘Right Hand‘ to the ‘Left Hand‘. A Conclusion

After the collapse of the Soviet Union (where ‘vagabondage’ was a crime, punished with imprisonment for up to three years), the state’s approach to homelessness has been shifting its focus from repression to assistance. Today, however, the balance between these two approaches is not definitive. This balance continues to be influenced by various local-level actors (the dynamics of staff positions within the Shelter), at medium-level (the Shelter’s relations with various governmental and non-profit organisations) and at the societal level through the state policies towards homeless people, but also through the attitudes and actions of the general society towards this category of people. Over the last decade, the two approaches—which correspond to the ‘left hand’ and the ‘right hand’ of the Shelter and the state—have become convergent and complementary. The Shelter was opened in 2003, with the help of Western funding, when the state was seeking to articulate a unitary approach based on conflicting practices and policies (assisting, on the one hand, and repressive, on the other hand). Ultimately, the Shelter embodies a difficult compromise between these two approaches. Day by day and in the long run, the Shelter’s policies in relation to users are negotiated between the staff representing the institution’s ‘soft line’ (social workers, psychologist) and employees embodying the ‘hard line’ (former law-enforcement employees).

In this context, it may be noted that the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection collaborates with the European Union institutions and other external donors (such as the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the World Bank) in various social service reform projects. These international organisations boost the Ministry of Social Protection and other local organisations with which it collaborates to embrace values and practices of solidarity and inclusion. Therefore, it can be said that the influence of Western donors in the elaboration and implementation of social policies and services towards marginalised groups of people is favourable to a ‘soft-line’ approach. The ‘hard-line’ approach to homeless people comes rather from the ‘right hand’ of the state, especially the law-enforcement institutions, namely the police and the penitentiary institutions. This study has been shown that the police cooperate periodically with representatives of the Shelter’s ‘hard-line’ approach to detect possible offenders among users. At the same time, some indicators show that over the past decade, the state has emphasised its repressive approach to marginal groups. Thus, the population of detainees in prisons in Moldova continued to grow, with 27% from 2010 to 2017 (although the number of persons committing crimes decreased over the same period by 24%). In addition, the proportion of the unemployed among detainees increased (from 23% in 2002 to 60% in 2018). ^[43] An exhaustive census of homeless people in Moldova (estimated by some NGOs to about 5,000 people in Chișinău in 2014) has not yet been made and the evolution of the number of these people over the last years has not been measured either. However, Shelter employees claim that they have been facing a larger number of users. This is the reason why they increased the number of beds at the Shelter from 70 to 100. Moreover, the perception of the Shelter staff confirms the analysis of the biographical data of the Shelter users (810 cases), namely that the number of admissions of users has indeed increased on average from 33 persons between 2004 and 2012 to 120 people between 2013 and 2016. This increase is partly due to the closure in 2013 of the police’s screening centre (the former spetspriiomnik), where homeless people were accommodated for up to three nights in cold weather. In addition, the human capital of the Shelter users is in relative decline: the average level of education decreased, the proportion of people employed in unqualified jobs is increasing and the proportion of former detainees is also slightly increasing (from 21% in 2015 to 23% in 2017).

Therefore, it can be said that the influence of the Ministry of Social Protection and its international donors is favourable to a tendency that emphasises the assisting approach to the homeless. In spite of this trend, the evolution of the social composition of the Shelter users is likely to emphasise the repressive approach of the Shelter. This later trend is consistent with the increase in the number of detainees in prisons and the tacit policy of ‘punishing the poor’ by the state law-enforcement institutions. Thus, the relationship between the soft-line and the hard-line approach is still in a fragile balance within the Shelter. This balance is in line with the relationship between the assistance to the needy and other marginalised people operated by the ‘left hand’ of the state, especially the institutions subordinated to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection, and the repressive approach applied to this category of citizens by the institutions subordinated to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior.

The repressive and assisting approaches of the institution’s and the state’s policies on homeless people (and other marginalised groups) have an almost symmetrical correspondence in the way Moldovan society defines and addresses the issue of marginalised people in everyday life and through the activity of some organisations. The repressive approach of the state mirrors the discriminatory attitudes and behaviours of a significant part of the population towards homeless people. ^[44] Also, the state’s assisting function towards marginal groups is continued at the level of the civil society by initiatives intended to assist, promoted on various occasions by secular and religious philanthropic organisations. Ultimately, philanthropic campaigns do not affect systemic mechanisms that (re)produce social marginalisation and vulnerability; they merely compensate for the lack of genuine solidarity among and toward the homeless.

The Shelter is an expression of the state’s policy and activity in relation to marginal people, namely the homeless. At the same time, the state does not represent an abstract entity but is made up of concrete individuals and intermediary institutions such as the Shelter. Therefore, the driver of change does not necessarily come from the top of the state structure but could emanate from a decentralised dynamic. All the relevant actors and stakeholders could play a role in such a dynamic of change: top-level decision makers, international organisations and donors, local associations, social workers from public and non-governmental bodies, academic researchers but also homeless people themselves, depending on their capacity to engage in collective actions.

The Shelter for the homeless represents a kind of ‘total institution’ ^[45] which, like prisons and internat schools, prevents the expressions of sociability, community and intimacy. These are not only important for the users’ wellbeing and quality of life but could lead to a more efficient organisation. As some researchers have shown, the people, including the ones in precarious situations, need not only to be helped, but also to be helpful, not just to ‘count on’ someone, but also to ‘count for’ others. ^[46] Encouraging mutual support and socialising, the institution would, therefore, contribute to building strong relationships and communities, and ultimately would foster users’ autonomy and self-determination. ^[47]