The role of begging in the survival strategies of Brussels street people

The lives of people in precarious situations are often poorly documented. Consequently, authorities and organisations lack reliable information to develop policies that meet these groups’ needs. People living on the streets are one such vulnerable and hidden population. Some of them beg, and although this activity is highly controversial, it has hardly been the subject of any scientific research. In this article, we analyse six years of individual records kept by Diogenes, a Brussels-based non-profit organisation providing outreach services, to improve our understanding of the role that begging plays in the lives of street people. We investigate how the characteristics of this group living on the streets correlate with the activity of begging. The analysis indicates that certain forms of vulnerability or exclusion – such as the lack of an income, addiction issues or a Roma background – increase the likelihood of begging. This is especially the case among people with psychological or addiction issues, those who belong to the Roma minority, and above all those who have no other source of income. In this context, begging appears to be mainly a survival activity: a flexible way of obtaining income when other options seem difficult to reach. This study shows how valuable the exploitation of existing but underused data can be for the development and evaluation of policy focused on the most vulnerable groups. Therefore, we also advocate a systematic approach to data collection and analysis within social work and policy.