News

Building more social housing is often presented as the obvious solution to address homelessness. Yet this approach, while important, is not enough to solve the problem of homeless people.

At Street Nurses, we often notice that a refusal of help by homeless people is often misunderstood. One might perceive it as a lack of willingness to leave the street. But this refusal often hides much more complex reasons. As Pierre Ryckmans, the coordinating physician of our team, explains: "It’s not a rejection of the hand offered, but a response to difficult experiences or inadequate solutions." Understanding these refusals allows us to provide more appropriate and respectful support.

Launch winter campaign 2024: "Donation after donation, let's build a future for homeless people". As the year draws to a close, Street Nurses invites you to join a movement to change the lives of homeless people. Your support can make all the difference: every donation you make is another contribution to a better future.

Living on the streets, in extremely precarious conditions of safety, sleep and food, usually leads, for practical or psychological reasons, to a deterioration in personal hygiene and clothing. This deteriorated state will be a warning signal for carers, and the extent of this deterioration will most often signal the seriousness of the situation.

In September, Housing First celebrated its tenth anniversary. To mark this event, Housing First teams from all over Belgium gathered in Brussels to take stock of this decade.

Dear reader, 2023 was marked by two concerns which, as always at Streetnurses, quickly turned into action: creating housing for our patients and improving their mental health.

The year 2023 was marked by two major concerns that, as always with Streetnurses, lead to action quickly: creating housing for our patients and improving their mental health.

For more information, download our summarized activity report!

Since 2006, Street nurses have helped more than 200 people in Brussels and Liège to find a home again. As part of the campaign "Donation after donation, let's build a future for homeless people", Emilie Meessen, co-founder, and Pierre Ryckmans, physician, talk about the organisation’s commitment in caring for homeless people through housing.

Brussels / Liège, 4 December 2023 - Street Nurses, a medical-social association that supports homeless people in Brussels and Liège in order to rehouse them on a long-term basis, is launching its winter campaign, entitled "Donation after donation, let's build a future for homeless people." The campaign runs from the end of November to the end of December, with the aim of raising public awareness of the need to end homelessness through housing, civic solidarity and the collection of donations.

It's simple: the solution for homelessness is housing. Yet in 2023 more than 200 people still sleep in the streets of Liège. What are the challenges and how can we tackle them? Hélène, housing manager at Infirmiers de Rue Liège, gives some answers.

The very commercial Black Friday has just passed... It has been tempting to spend money on things we don't always need. It is true that all these promotions are designed to distract us from what really matters: people.

So this year, make a different decision that will have a real impact on the lives of the most vulnerable homeless people: donate to Street Nurses.

Getting homeless people off the street and housing them permanently requires persistence and perseverance. In that process, relaxed and comfortable moments are just as important as medical-social counseling. They allow us, with our patients, to identify and use their own skills for their sustainable reintegration.