When there is snow and others make themselves comfortable at home after work, Sabine Dindas is out on the streets.
She provides homeless people with the essentials - on a voluntary basis.
Fürstenfeldbruck
- Sabine Dindas was driving down the escalator into a Munich subway station when she saw something lying across the steps below.
As she got closer, she realized that there was an unconscious elderly man lying there, his back already bloody from the steps scraping past.
No one helped the neglected-looking injured man.
Sabine Dindas alarmed the security service and an ambulance in horror.
She was 16 or 17 years old at the time.
Today she is 43, but to this day she has not forgotten the sight of the motionless figure and the passers-by.
"Everyone, but really everyone" simply rose over the man.
Because he was obviously a homeless man.
Experiences like this made the Bruckerin even more sensitive to the fate of people who live on the street.
She had already noticed her in the Munich cityscape and sometimes spoke to her - because she was genuinely interested in how people got into this situation.
Most of the time they told of strokes of fate that "can really affect anyone".
Sabine Dindas, who works as an assistant to the management and is the single mother of an autistic son, recently launched an aid campaign.
She called it "Project Peter" after an uncle who became an alcoholic after his marriage failed - a downward spiral similar to that of many homeless people.
Sabine Dindas' uncle did not end up on the street - he took his own life.
“He was a teacher, a very good person and very socially minded,” says the Dortmund native.
He would certainly be proud of his niece's commitment.
Warm sleeping bags
Every two weeks she and other volunteers distribute warm sleeping bags, winter clothing and other donations in kind to the homeless on Munich's streets.
But there are also people in Bruck without a roof over their heads.
One day Sabine Dindas was in the playground with her son when she saw a man rummaging in a garbage can.
Where others turn away, embarrassed, the 43-year-old does the opposite - also in this case.
She offered help to the homeless.
But it took three years before he gained confidence and at least accepted blankets and food from her.
At some point it turned out that it was a former schoolmate of Dindas' ex-husband - and that he had graduated from high school at the time.
Today he is very depressed.
"He urgently needs psychological support," says Sabine Dindas.
One day she found him in the Rothschwaiger Forest, turned purple and almost frozen from the cold.
"So I put him in the car and drove him to town." She helped with the paperwork and managed to get the man into a homeless shelter.
The bureaucracy
The bureaucracy is a major hurdle for many homeless people. Those who end up on the street with mental health problems find it difficult to go to the social welfare office.
"And there he is turned away because some paper is missing", complains Sabine Dindas.
It makes them angry when people who are obviously in need of help are not helped just because they cannot provide an authorization certificate, passport photo or bank statements.
Systematic support is needed here, demands Dindas.
"There is no interface between the homeless and the authorities."
In their eyes, it would be even more important to simplify or reduce bureaucracy.
“The laws have to change.
I know this is a lofty goal.
But I want to work towards that as a little light. "
