Luxembourg is seen as an oasis of luxury in Europe, but poverty and homelessness are on the rise. While the government has done little to respond here, NGOs are doing what they can to combat the most extreme levels of hardship.
Luxembourg is a financial hub and home to the European Court of Justice as well as countless shell companies. And with the highest per capita GDP anywhere in the world, the country is also known for its wealth and luxury. But there’s a different, lesser-known side to the grand duchy. Alexandra Oxacelay is with “Stëmm vun der Strooss,” an NGO dedicated to taking care of people who are homeless and socially vulnerable. The soup kitchen run by this charity is seeing a growing number of people searching for shelter, a hot meal and support. One of them is Stephan from Hungary, who’s spent the last seven years living in a tent – even during winter. Alexandra has also noticed an increase in the number of “working poor,” or people struggling to make ends meet despite having a job. Serge Kappel suffers from chronic inflammatory back pain and has been unable to find an apartment he can afford due to a dramatic increase in rental costs. Researcher Antoine Paccoud attributes this to rampant speculation on the real estate market and insufficient funding for social housing. Alexandra can at least provide affordable housing for some people in need. But that help is limited when compared to the growing number of Luxembourgers and refugees who have become dependent on the NGO while living in the shadows of high-profile office buildings.
Poverty in Luxembourg has become an increasingly divisive issue. Yannick Wirtz, who is out of work, feels let down by the government and says there should be greater restrictions on immigration. Whereas NGO director Alexandra Oxacelay refuses to discriminate when it comes to the disadvantaged – insisting that in the wealthiest country in Europe, everyone deserves to be helped.
#documentary #dwdocumentary #poverty
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29 Comments
Alexander remind me of. My late suster that had a soup kitchen in south africa
I prophecied it!Wat is coming in western…lol it has never be experienced!This is ONLY the begining😮
The guy says is heaven in earth😂😂😂😂😂😂waoooooo😢
Congratulations Alexandra!!!!❤
This people who live in the camp speak German and don't speak French or Luxembourgish. They do come from Germany not from the country, Luxembourg😮😮😮
Misleading title. They aren't Luxembourgish or anything like that; they're immigrants who walked over the border there and the government has allowed it so far – and they even care for them! Which was a bad idea, as you can tell from all the trash they spread around in our forests.
Why would you call Luxembourg the world’s most wealthy country? What are the median wages in Luxembourg?
thus coming time to forming folks upon views and belief common habits and no nations
These people will be more grateful for support they get from government especially non immigrants comparing to situations of same homeless in Asia. I just realized how people complain about how small their apartment there but in my country the entire family of 6 or more squeezed themselves to fit in studio apartment and they are grateful to have a roof above them. How much more having coffee machine lol 😅 come on!
love the lady with the luxemburgish accent while speaking german, and I as a Luxembourger feel like the guy at 8:48 … getting a house gets so hard so we got to go to Germany, we cant speak our language anymore and traffics gets worse and worse…
what I hate the most is also the social environement , like asking someone what time it is people look weirdly at you even when you make the effort to speak french since the frontaliers (the boundary crossing workers, plenty of bankers and burocrats) don't speak our language and honestly most people dont give a shit about our culture…
Why should people working their ass off help other people who dont want to work. These people wants to take drugs and enjoy life living without working. This woman helping them is what goes wrong with our country. Why does she wants her country to be an asilium for lazy people. ??? we want to leave with people like us. People working.
These people are the ones getting drunk during the day and scaring the women. Getting agressive and putting trashed everywhere on the streets.
Because of the poverty around the world, in this case, Luxemburg, people lose their humanity. Some got bitter and angry, become hateful and makes comments wits no respect for life at all. What I try to say is, if you're lucky enough then you willl never know how it is to survive poverty. But when something happens in your life that cause you to have lack of money, then you will be happy if someone is there to help you. Poverty can happen to anyone, one day you are rich, next day you're poor. You lose your job, your partner loaned too much money, your house rent is raised too high for your walled, you can't afford to pay your utilities, and so on. It can happen anybody.
Wealthiest my A!! Luxembourg is a money laundering hub.
As a person living in Luxembourg, I can only say this is not true. Me, coming also from another contry, where the goverment doesn't help, I can only say that here goverment try to help everyone, giving food and shelter, paying to people apartments when they are strugling with money, finding jobs etc. When you can't find a job, they give you a lot of chance to work for special companies which are created for this kind of people. You must be really on the end, read with your brain and mind, not to have a place to live. Or you must come from I don't know where…Ofcourse that little contry can't take all the poor people coming from all over the world. Sad but it is just like that. Yes it is overpriced, but still it is possible to live…
Europe has a lot of opportunities. Even migrants from Africa who come with nothing can set up a decent middle class life for themselves in a few years. I don’t mean to be unsympathetic but if you are healthy but poor in Europe, is it not your fault to some degree?
They are homeless by choice, they think they'll get rich just by going there.
Homeless problem is because of implementation of successful capitalism. 1- Success of Capitalism in economy (rich are richer, poor are poorer). For example, in capitalism 1% owns the more than 50% of the capital is very normal. 2- Success of capitalism creating consumer market by breaking up families (divorce), getting people hook up to narcotics for pharmaceutical corporations, creating wars for defense contractors creating millions of jobless, homeless immigrants, 3-Taking jobs to Asia for cheap labor and 4-recently significant application of automations that cuts down the work force.
'KALERGI PLAN'
FULL in SWING!!
They arent even locals. Why is that the problem of the state?
better to stay in your own country, it is alot cheaper to live.
they should have a high school class to sleep outside and go to the garbage cans to eat for 1 week
As a hungarian these people are shame of our nation. Homeless for 7+ yrs EHH. They not even try to get a job… if they would really they wouldn't be homeless that long time ago.. I understand they need help but there should be a barely minimum to provide by themself othervise they just fine with the free stuff.
Better to just beg and get free housing and food than work and pay too high tax in europe.
So these are the people ronaldo scores most of his goals against?
He is crazy 🤪 no Hungary 🇭🇺.
Natural phenomenon. As long as there is wealthy, there must surely be poverty.. This is how life goes
Immigration will be the end of many economies.
Romanians don't want to work. They prefer to beg for money. I talked to a Romanian woman in the Netherlands, I wanted to help her find a job, but she had 1000 excuses why not. I tried until my husband said: stop, she doesn't want to work! I couldn't understand it…