Trundling across Warsaw’s freezing streets and packed tight with weary passengers, the MPP bus looks just like any other in the city. The interior resembles that of all Warsaw’s buses; there’s a standard route map on its window; and ‘MPP’ stickers are affixed to the front of bus stops dotted around the city.
But this is a bus with a difference. MPP stands for Mobilny Punkt Poradnictwa – or Mobile Counselling Point – and the service provides emergency care and intervention for the homeless of the city.
This is the second year that the MPP bus has operated in Warsaw. Launched in 2018 by city authorities, it aims to provide free transport for homeless people to travel to shelters and lodging houses over winter, along with hot drinks, warm clothes, and access to counselling services. The route covers public locations frequently used by homeless people in the city, such as railway stations, as well as stopping off at health centres and night shelters. It runs several times a day and is available all week, including public holidays, from November to April.
According to a city spokesperson, in the bitter winter season, the MPP bus is becoming a lifeline for the approximately 2500 homeless people in the city.
“The main reason to launch the program in 2018 was the need to reach out to people in public space who, for various reasons, do not use stationary outlets,” the spokesperson said.
“The bus also enables the homeless to move between shelters, lodging houses, canteens, heating rooms, medical assistance points and bathing houses for the homeless, because those institutions are at a considerable distance from each other.”
Homelessness in Warsaw is proving to be a serious issue, with schemes to support individuals often criticised for being ineffective. There have been frequent reports of police hassling homeless people and public apathy towards their plight. Just last week, Warsaw tabloids even reported that residents of the city had complained about homeless people travelling on public transport to seek shelter from the cold. But the MPP bus is trying to change this. Paid for by the Warsaw city budget, and operated in conjunction with four NGOs, the bus is staffed by both volunteers and street workers employed by the City Hall, providing outreach support and cooperating with other facilities across the city, to ensure homeless people receive the help they need.
Aleksandra Cacko is the intermediary at the centre of the operation, communicating between the different groups involved in the scheme. “Everyday in the MPP brings new experiences – every man or woman entering the bus has different story to tell, or struggles with various issues,” she says.
“There’s a possibility for literally everybody to get some help – their health condition, sex, genre, problems they are struggling with, or intoxication does not matter. Everybody is provided with help, everyone gets a cup of warm tea or coffee.”
Collecting flasks of hot tea and coffee is usually the workers’ first job each morning. And this has proven a popular part of the bus scheme, with as many as 7167 cups of hot tea distributed during the winter of 2018-19, when temperatures reached lows of around -12°C.
Overall, during that freezing winter, 279 homeless people were helped on the bus, with 308 hygiene products, clothing and underwear items donated. The bus can also step in during emergencies – last winter, first aid was given 41 times, and medical services called 14 times.
As the bus service does not finish until April, a final count for this year’s scheme is still ongoing, but the spokesperson says that support has been provided to 214 people from November to December, with around 2000 hot drinks distributed. This is evidence, they claim, that the scheme is growing in popularity – and Cacko agrees:
“I am certain that this year we are facing broader interest,” she says.
“Entering our bus is the first step you take to solve your struggles with bad housing or homelessness. Moreover, the majority of public institutions know about us and direct people straight to us to get help.”
The bus is one of many schemes in Warsaw to help the homeless – according to the City Hall website, in 2019, nearly 16 million złoty was given to NGOs to provide help. Facilities co-financed by the City of Warsaw include several shelters, three bath houses, a 24-hour winter heating room for winter, five cafeterias, four counselling sites and 11 programs to help with recovery from addiction, and there are also plans to build more shelters.
These schemes also complement other projects that support the homeless in the Polish capital. One community-led project is Smile Warsaw, which provides food, clothes and haircuts for the poor and homeless every Sunday in the city centre.
Chris Beckmann, a volunteer for the group, welcomes the MPP project as extra help in winter, when he sees a “strong demand” for warm clothes and shoes, sleeping bags and blankets.
According to him, however, there are still many people who rely on Smile Warsaw each Sunday.
“Smile Warsaw is unique in that we come from all walks of life, from many different places and beliefs, and yet we are only driven by the desire to bring a little comfort to the guests who come visit every Sunday,” he says.
“The sheer number of guests every Sunday has me convinced that there is a need for our offering.”
And Charanjit Singh, who founded Warsaw Seva in 2017 to provide meals to the homeless, says similar. Singh was inspired to establish Warsaw Seva from his religious duty as a Sikh to perform Seva where required.
He thinks the bus is “a good and a needed project for the homeless and poor” during Warsaw’s cold winter period.
“The big advantage of the bus is that it has a long route and gets the homeless to places where they can get help and food,” he explains.
But though he feels the homeless and poor are better off in Poland compared to other countries, with the support from Church and government organisations, he still thinks “more can be done” to help.
“The people in Warsaw and Poland are mixed on the subject of the homeless and poor,” he says.
“Some actually believe that there is a job for everyone and the homeless and poor are just lazy. Others believe that the government/church is helping the homeless and poor and so they don’t have to. Others feel that by handling money to the homeless and poor they are doing their part.”
“There should be a right channel to make sure that the homeless and poor get the help they need.”
The aim of the MPP bus is to encourage just this, offering support to people who might not otherwise seek help. Most importantly, it works to humanise individuals who are often neglected and forgotten – the bus also offers a wide range of donated reading material for passengers, providing cultural experiences that would otherwise be too expensive to access.
And though the bus only runs until April, as winter is the most difficult period for the homeless, Cacko hopes that increasing numbers of passengers on the bus will prove that the scheme needs to run for the whole year.
“In my opinion, it is very important to inform the society and fight the stereotypes concerning homelessness,” she says. “We need to spread the idea of civil society, acceptance of differences, tolerance, and helping people who are, as many people say, outside of social frameworks.”
“The MPP is one of those places where all those phrases meet.”
Image credits: Aleksandra Cacko