The Hungarian NGO “The City is for All” is fighting for the rights of homeless people – but not only for them, but with their active participation. They have much on their hands these days: the Parliament recently passed a constitutional amendment criminalizing living on the streets.The City…

Hungary is in the news these days. The most recent event that brought this country to the headlines was the modification of the constitution (now official called the Fundamental Law). Although it has not been the most outrageous thing that the current regime has done, the modification is the…

Part 2: Global Urban Uprisings (Chair: Peter Marcuse, Hiba Bou Akar, Mavuso Dignani, Deen Sharp, Éva Tessza Udvarhelyi)

In this presentation, I will first introduce the organization called The City is for All and then move on to some of the dilemmas we have encountered in our work. I will provide more questions than answers as my questions are meant as a friendly provocation for further critical reflection. 1. The…

Modern capitalist societies have always combined elements of the social and the penal state when it came to dealing with social inequality and poverty. Hungary is no exception. The state responses to housing poverty since the regime change in the late 1980s have included both approaches, but with a…

Dósa  Mariann és  Udvarhelyi Éva Tessza "The increasing criminalization of homelessness in Hungary" című cikke megjelent a Housing Rights Watch 2012 októberi számában. A cikk letölthető innen. Housing Rights Watch Poverty is not a Crime kampány

Hungary's new anti-vagrancy laws — the toughest in Europe — now mean that homeless people sleeping on the street can face police fines or even the possibility of jail time. Advocacy and human-rights groups are alarmed by the new efforts to crack down on and criminalize homelessness, where the ranks…