News

July 2021 will go down in history as the moment when many Belgians became climate refugees in their own country.

In 2021 Street Nurses celebrates its 15th anniversary. Emilie Meessen, co-founder, and Pierre Ryckmans, medical doctor, take stock of all those years of caring for homeless people. How did they adapt with their team to work in the field and changes in the profile of their patients? How did they experience those changes and what did they do to try and face the challenge of homelessness? Very quickly, relodging people proved to be an indispensable remedy. Here is why.

Last week, the consultation commission on the "sustainable solution to the situation of homeless people in the Brussels Capital Region" published its recommendations. The 97 recommendations take a clear direction and are in line with the suggestions of the sector: access to housing, prevention, access to rights, administrative simplification, etc. All things that we as Street Nurses, together with other organisations, have been pushing forward for a long time.

Street Nurses is not involved in the hunger strike of the sans-papiers in the church of the Béguinage, the VUB and the ULB.

Nevertheless, Street Nurses is highly concerned about the people on hunger strike.

Like many others, we demand, expect, hope ... that a solution will soon be found for them. This solution can only be political.

Easily find your way as a homeless person to a free public toilet or drinking fountain in Brussels. That is the aim of the city plan "Fountains with drinkable water and free toilets", which we publish this year for the 10th time.

During the entire month of June they challenge their employees to collect 1000 km of sport per team. Walking, cycling, hiking, as long as they move!

Street Nurses, also active in Liège for the past two years, has the ambition to set up a reintegration project through housing in the Ardennes city as well. Just like we have been doing for years in Brussels.

A Brussels-based medical doctor, passionate about string instruments, created a unique guitar from a single solid block of wood as part of the second edition of the Great Guitar Build Off.

The November 2020 census, organized by Bruss'Help, shows that the number of homeless people in Brussels rose from 4,380 in 2018 to 5,313 in 2020, an increase of 21%. This was the sixth census since 2008, and the numbers have never stopped increasing. In this opinion article, we propose 4 essential pillars for the implementation of a Global Plan to End Homelessness.

On this “International Nurses' Day”, we would like to put the spotlight on our colleagues for the extraordinary work they have done every day for the past 15 years with homeless people.

A new project by Street Nurses investigates whether animals can be used to facilitate contact with homeless people.

As you may have noticed, homeless people often have a dog with them. This four-legged friend is very important to its owner: it offers protection, of course, but most of all, its presence offers comfort and affection that makes the difficulties of street life a little easier to bear.

Encouraging formerly homeless people to get on with their lives and become so attached to their new home that they will never want to leave. This is, in a nutshell, the mission of the "My Way" project that we launched at the beginning of the year.  The aim is clear: to ensure that our patients never fall back on the streets again.