Every year Sarajevo’s Gerontology Centre opens door to the homeless, who seek for shelter to hide from the cold weather and snow. These days the centre is being home to 19 people in need of care and roof over their heads.
Temporary tenants of the Gerontology Centre’s shelter, located in the Nedzarici neighbourhood, enjoy the same treatment as permanent users accommodated there. They get three meals a day and a warm room to stay.
Before they came here, they had none of it but were barely surviving in the open.
They don’t like to speak in front of cameras. They don’t want anyone to know they are here and also, as they say, nothing would change the situation they’re in.
42-year-old Desanka Vasic has been in the facilities for more than 10 months.
“I am here because I don’t have a home. My children are in the shelter (too). I’ve been here for ten, now the eleventh month. I’ve never had a home,” she said.
She is satisfied with the conditions in the centre.
“We have three meals, bathing, clothes changing, haircut… I was moved from the street and we’ll see for how long I will stay here. I’m happy not to be outside in this weather. I used to go from a ruin to ruin for the whole winter season and light fire in yards to get warmer together with my children,” Vasic told her story for Anadolu Agency.
57-year-old Midhat Kapedzic, originally from the northern town of Modrica, is also one of the tenants in the centre.
He stayed for a while in the town of Gradacac but the apartment he was in was sold and he was left outside, on a street.
“I can’t thank this centre enough. Before coming here I was in an abandoned house. One day someone called the police when I came into a ruin and they brought me here. They told me: ‘You’ll freeze.’ (I said:) What can I do? It was cold,” said Kapedzic.
This is where he feels like home, he added.
According to Zijad Memisevic, the centre’s general manager, the number of the homeless looking for shelter changes depending on weather conditions.
In summer, there are a few persons there who don’t even stay for a long. They come to wash, change and then leave, said Memisevic.
“All users who are currently here have come through the Sarajevo Canton Social Welfare Centre or municipal services, with the assistance of police agencies,” he added.
Depending on their status, on whether they have any family or are all alone, the persons stay either for a short period of time or as long as necessary.
“The shelter is the busiest during the winter season when the air temperature gets low and there are many people in need of social care, more precisely, the homeless. But their number in the shelter depends on the activities of other organisations,” Memisevic explained.
The shelter operating within the Gerontology Centre has been operating since 1984 when the city hosted the Olympic Games and the city authorities built it for the purpose of moving the homeless people from the street.
“Fortunately or not, these facilities are still here and is operating as a part of the (Gerontology) Centre,” said Memisevic.
