Winter protocol to protect the life and health of homeless people

Social streetworkers of the municipal outreach team intensify their outreach work in the winter months and offer people contacted on the street (according to their interest and need) warm clothing, warm drink, basic food or hygiene package, or protective winter materials such as blanket, sleeping bag or isothermal foil.

They provide social counseling to homeless people or give them Map of services for people in need ↗︎, which contains all available forms and services of assistance in Bratislava.

Organizations working with homeless people also set up a so-called winter regime within the outreach streetwork social service, as well as other social services of crisis intervention. Main goal is to meet people's needs during this difficult period – for example they extend their opening hours of services, set higher capacity, more frequent visits in the streets or issuing and distributing protective winter material.

The city's or non-governmental organizations' outreach services have limited capacities, especially during weekends and nights, despite strengthening their services in winter. The city police have a certain number of patrols in the field every night, covering all city districts and driving around the city all night monitoring the situation.

During patrols, they naturally encounter homeless people, and it is necessary to be able to communicate with them sensitively and, if they are interested, provide them with warm clothes, sleeping bag or sleeping mat.

Of course, it is also very important to inform or motivate them to use services – for example night shelters. If a homeless person is in danger of health, the city police can call a cooperating transport service that will provide transportation to the night shelter in the city.

If a person does not want to or cannot go to the shelter, they can provide them with winter material to protect them from the cold and also information about services where they can go during the day. If a person's life is in direct danger (e.g. hypothermia), the patrol will call the ambulance (emergency medical services).

The Winter Protocol was launched on December 2, 2024 to March 3, 2025 (3 months). During this period, 34 people (28 men and 6 women) were transported to the night shelter of Depaul Slovakia by the cooperating transport service.

Since the launch of the protocol, colleagues from the City Outreach Team have reached out to people in need 115 times (30 individual clients). During the outreach service, they also provided people in danger with winter accessories and packages to help them survive the cold weather:

• 30 sleeping bags,
• 28 blankets,
• 65 thermal blankets,
• 42 pairs of socks,
• 53 shoe warmers,
• 43 pairs of gloves,
• 42 scarves/neckerchieves,
• 97 pcs of food packages,
• 96 pcs of hygiene packages,
• 17 pcs of mecidal packages.

At the same time, the City Police helped or provided warm winter materials to 133 people (some of them repeatedly): 106 sleeping bags, 67 blankets, 90 pairs of gloves, 47 pairs of socks, 70 neck warmers, 48 shoe warmers and 77 sleeping mats.

During this season, we also managed to launched the winter crisis night shelter (ZKN), the aim of which was to expand the capacities of the only low-threshold night shelter in Bratislava (St. Vincent de Paul's Dormitory), as well as to create places for people in urgent situations, which are handled by our City Outreach Team or the City Police. We managed to launch the ZKN mainly thanks to the support and cooperation with BKIS, STARZ, NGOs working with homeless people, our City Shelter Hradská and our City Outreach Team.

During its operation from January 15, 2025, to March 2, 2025 (45 nights), we provided a total of 679 overnight stays for 44 individual clients (38 men and 6 women).

In the future, we want to continue the winter protocol in the winter period to protect the lives and health of the most vulnerable.

The Winter Protocol was launched from December 1, 2023 to February 29, 2024 (3 months). During this period, 21 people (14 men and 7 women) were transported to the night shelter of Depaul Slovakia by the cooperating transport service.

Since the launch of the protocol, colleagues from the City Outreach Team have reached out to people in need 79 times (31 individual clients). During the outreach service, they also provided people in danger with winter accessories and packages to help them survive the cold weather:

• 24 sleeping bags,
• 18 blankets,
• 24 thermal blankets,
• 37 pairs of socks,
• 41 shoe warmers,
• 27 pairs of gloves,
• 11 scarves/neck warmers,
• 71 pcs of food packages,
• 76 pcs of hygiene packages,
• 56 pcs of medical packages.

At the same time, the city police helped or provided warm winter materials to 42 people (some of them repeatedly): 7 sleeping bags, 26 blankets, 5 pairs of gloves, 16 pairs of socks, 18 neck warmers and 7 shoe warmers.

In the future, we want to continue the winter protocol to protect the lives and health of the most vulnerable.