Authorities Bothered By Homeless Shelter

The founder of the homeless shelter is demanded to register his inmates.

Police demands from the dweller of Aliaksandrauka village (Shchuchyn district, Hrodna region) Aliaksei Shchadrou to register the people who live in his inofficial shelter for the disadvantaged named after the Holy Mother of Grace.

In a conversation with a BelaPAN reporter Shachadrou told that recently he had been visited by an officer of the citizenship and migration department of Shchuchyn police department. As said by the founder of the shelter, he had pictures of the present dwellers of the shelter with him.

The policemen drew up a report under Article 23.53 Part 1 against each of them, and as the first penalty issued an official warning for living without registration. He warned that next time, in case dwellers of the shelter have no registration, the violation is to be treated according to the part 2 of the same article, which entails a fine of up to 4 basic units (Br840,000).

When the policeman learnt that two out of the five persons staying at the shelter are registered by the city overnight home in Hrodna, the police representative said: “Let them go there and live there.” The policeman offered Shachadrou to register the homeless inmates according to their actual residence in Aliaksandrauka, and to pay a tax for leasing space (0.5 basic units, or Br105,000) per each resident each month.

“I answered that we are living on what Lord sends us and what people give, – Shchadrou said. – We have no permanent income. In order to pay electricity and phone bills, we ask people for help. But police does not care, they only care about our paying tax for each person… When a person is lying on a dumping ground, in a basement without documents, exhausted and sick, policemen do not care about that. And when I picked up people from the street and gave them house, they start to oppress us, draw up reports.”

“Maybe policemen need to reach some targets… Or maybe they want to pelt me with reports, and then to present the situation as if I am not paying anything, in order to initiate a case against me – the founder of the Our Lady of Grace shelter supposed. He added that he does not know how to solve this new problem with police claims.

As said by him, after a recent article on the web that people have nothing to eat in his shelter, the chairperson of the local rural council, the chief doctor and the district policeman arrived to Aliaksandrauka. “They started to inspect my fridge, asking what I have to feed the people. The chairperson called a Roman Catholic priest to Vasilishki, he arrived, took me to a shop and we bought foodstuffs. It has happened for the first time in five years… Now we have potatoes, carrots, pasta, people have helped to pay electricity bills,” – he said.

Aliaksei Shchadrou, who also calls himself Brother Luigi, was born on January 1, 1985 in Braslau (Vitsebsk region), he was brought up in an orphanage. On December 1, 2011 he founded an unofficial shelter of Our Lady of Grace, which up till now receives the homeless. The shelter has accommodated more than 100 persons over this time.

In 2013 a case under Article 193.1 of the Criminal Code (Activities on behalf of unregistered organisation) was opened against Shchadrou, and he faced up to two years of imprisonment for that. Later in the same year the criminal proceedings against him were dismissed. Shchadrou managed to officially register his house as a shelter, but in 2014 the registration was cancelled.