The shelter employees resent Mr. Ryszard, who portrayed their work and his stay at the shelter, as well as the moment when he was led out of the shelter, in a bad light.
– Mr. Ryszard did not undertake outpatient treatment and is ill – a PCK representative says. – And we only accept healthy people. We do not have nurses or the ability to help an ill person. And not because we do not want to. We simply do not have such possibilities. Our shelter is on the second floor [bez windy – przyp. red]. An ill person cannot stay in such conditions. Our shelter is exclusively for healthy men who are able to stay here. It happens that we accept ill people in emergencies; sometimes the police leave a homeless person downstairs by the door. However, we have no conditions for a longer stay for ill people. Mr. Ryszard is also not a person without means; he receives a pension. By comparison, the shelter houses people who genuinely have no means of living because they are unable to work or have not received a pension decision – the representative adds.
Staying at a shelter for people experiencing homelessness is not free of charge. The Social Assistance Act specifies how much a person occupying a place in a shelter should pay. It is 30% of their income, whatever that income may be.
– Mr. Ryszard has deductions taken from his pension, but under the Act we do not take deductions into account. These are his obligations connected with his lifestyle and past – a social worker explains. – To calculate the charge for the shelter, the social assistance center uses the net amount resulting from the ZUS decision. Mr. Ryszard exceeds by 100% the social assistance eligibility threshold for a single person, which is PLN 776 – the employee adds.
– If someone comes to us after 3:00 p.m., when social assistance centers are closed, we accept that person – the employee explains. – We send the homeless person's details by email to the relevant social assistance center. The following day, the person is informed that they must appear in person either at MOPS in Bolesławiec, if they have no means, because MOPS Bolesławiec has an employee who deals specifically with such people, or, if they have means, they must personally go to the center in the municipality where they were last registered. There has never been a situation in which we left someone to fend for themselves. The Act states that a social inquiry and a signed social contract are required for admission to a shelter. A prerequisite for staying in a shelter is the issuance of an administrative decision, on the basis of which we admit a person to the shelter. The decision also specifies the length of stay. PCK only implements this decision. Some men receive a decision for two months, others for six months; it depends on the center, the social worker and the beneficiary's actions. If a beneficiary takes up work during their stay, another social inquiry is conducted and the shelter fee is recalculated. It is the relevant social assistance center that decides whether the beneficiary remains in the shelter. The shelter's social worker only verifies changes in the beneficiary's living situation – the employee adds.
Mr. Ryszard had already been a PCK resident in Bolesławiec.
Mr. Rysiek had come to us before and was one of our beneficiaries [Ryszard uciekł ze szpitala dla Psychicznie i Nerwowo Chorych i około roku był w schronisku PCK – przyp. red.]. He was referred to us by GOPS in Warta Bolesławiecka – the employee says. – We do not know how it happened. The police did not know that he was staying at the shelter, and when they finally found him there, Mr. Ryszard returned to the hospital. He was never an easy beneficiary. The shelter has rules. Beneficiaries are required to perform activities for the facility. Unfortunately, Mr. Ryszard never carried out any tasks or made an effort to change his life. He was on our list, but he did not help with meals and did not clean. He repeatedly told us that he had been a company president all his life and had people to handle such things. The Social Assistance Center in Warta Bolesławiecka had known about this for a long time because we repeatedly notified them that they needed to take steps to find this man another place to stay. We accepted Mr. Ryszard as a courtesy because of our cooperation with GOPS in Warta Bolesławiecka. Point 10 of our rules states that people with mental illness who are under the permanent care of a psychiatric clinic may not be admitted to the facility. The women from GOPS in Warta asked us to accept Mr. Ryszard because he was waiting for a place in a nursing home and it was a matter of a month. We may have shot ourselves in the foot by accepting him… – the employee concludes.
Mr. Ryszard, according to PCK representatives, liked the women working at the shelter.
– Every day we heard him say that he was grateful for his stay and that we had taken care of him – the employee adds. – He was at the shelter yesterday [January 6 – editor's note] and apologized for his statements on January 3. Mr. Ryszard knew and had been warned that he would be transferred to the nursing home in Osiek. GOPS employees did not arrange the transport because his son undertook to take his father to Osiek. We know this from the account of GOPS employees in Warta. When the son was supposed to appear at the center on January 2 to take his father, it turned out that his car had broken down. I personally admitted Mr. Ryszard, whom that same son brought to PCK straight from the hospital in Świecie on November 18, 2022 – the employee explains.
According to information we obtained from the employee, the decision issued by GOPS in Warta authorizing Mr. Ryszard's stay at the shelter was valid until December 31, 2022. From January 2, 2023, Mr. Ryszard already had a place in the nursing home in Osiek. The shelter kept him as a courtesy for three more nights, until January 3.
– The caregiver asked him to pack his things and leave the facility voluntarily. We always inform beneficiaries that if they do not leave the shelter voluntarily, we will call an intervention team because we have that right. Mr. Ryszard knew this. The intervention team did not use force while escorting Mr. Ryszard out – the employee adds.
The version presented by the PCK representatives in Bolesławiec concerning Mr. Ryszard's removal from the shelter is also confirmed by a witness, a beneficiary. His statement can be found below in the video.