With the approach of winter, Caritas in Poland is preparing to receive an ever-growing number of down-and-outs in its 191 centres. According to the statistics, over 12% of Poles are living below the poverty threshold, and they especially include the inhabitants of the countryside and small rural communities. Each day Polish Caritas helps over one and a half million down-and-outs and homeless people. The figure for the latter is however difficult to ascertain: estimates vary from 30,000 to 300,000. Last winter 291 people are reported to have died of cold. “We must bear in mind that the homeless include not just people with criminal records and alcoholics, but in many cases people who have been rejected by their families or evicted from their homes. We help them to regain their dignity as human persons and self-confidence. Helping them is our duty as Christians”, says Zdzislaw Swiniarski, Assistant Director of Caritas. In winter Caritas centres provide shelter for a far larger number of the needy than in summer, when people can sleep in the open or find seasonal work. In the winter months (from November to April) the centres also take in alcoholics, who are refused access to the dormitories in summer. Apart from the homeless, Polish Caritas also helps children, the elderly and the handicapped, offering their support also to the needy of other countries of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, and the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus), Asia, Africa and Latin America. The value of aid donated by benefactors and furnished by Caritas in Poland in 2005 rose to 50 million euros, whereas in 2004 the resources at its disposal did not exceed 9 million euros.
