"Really touches me" SRF star Mona Vetsch meets homeless people - the reactions are touching
"Mona mittendrin: Life on the street - between poverty, loneliness and hope": Mona Vetsch is on patrol with street workers in Zurich and came across Hausi there
Image: SRF
Ferruccio also often lives on the street. In Zurich, Pastor Sieber's Pfuusbus offers people in need a place to sleep.
Image: SRF
Homeless Hausi wants to pay off his debts and dreams of an apartment.
Image: SRF
Mona Vetsch's encounters get under her skin. Here with pensioner Hausi.
Image: SRF
"Mona mittendrin: Life on the street - between poverty, loneliness and hope": Mona Vetsch is on patrol with street workers in Zurich and came across Hausi there
Image: SRF
Ferruccio also often lives on the street. In Zurich, Pastor Sieber's Pfuusbus offers people in need a place to sleep.
Image: SRF
Homeless Hausi wants to pay off his debts and dreams of an apartment.
Image: SRF
Mona Vetsch's encounters get under her skin. Here with pensioner Hausi.
Image: SRF
SRF star Mona Vetsch accompanied street workers at work in Zurich for her reportage series "Mona mittendrin". Vetsch was deeply moved by her encounters with the homeless.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- For the SRF series "Mona mittendrin", Mona Vetsch spent three days in Zurich accompanying street workers from the Pfarrer Sieber Foundation.
- Vetsch met people in need, many of whom were sleeping on the street. For example, the SRF journalist met Haus, a pensioner from Bern. His life fell apart after an operation.
- "It really saddens me," says Vetsch, after a night-time walk with the street patrol.
- "Mona mittendrin: Leben auf der Strasse - Zwischen Armut, Einsamkeit und Hoffnung" was broadcast on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, at 9 p.m. on SRF 1 and is available online.
Special assignment for Mona Vetsch: The SRF reporter has to go out at night for her assignment - a first.
In the current episode of "Mona Mittendrin", Vetsch accompanies street workers from the Pfarrer Sieber Foundation on their tour of Zurich. The social workers provide low-threshold help. Do the homeless people have enough warmth? Do they need another blanket? A cup of coffee or tea to warm them up? Or even medical help? They call this service "cold patrol".
Street worker Franziska Kaguembèga from the Pfarrer Sieber Foundation knows how to deal with people in need without shelter. Her motto: observe, decide, act - but only if necessary.
Mona Vetsch accompanies Franziska Kaguembèga, distributing blankets and warm drinks: "It's a parallel world that you also overlook. Yet it is right in our midst, in one of the richest cities in the world," summarizes Vetsch, after the tour has taken her around the main station and to Paradeplatz.
Around 60 people sleep outside in Zurich, 200 inside - for example in Pastor Sieber's Pfuusbus, which Vetsch also visits. Men are more likely to live on the street than women, older rather than younger. This is because women are often better integrated socially and more likely to accept help.
On one occasion, the SRF journalist and the street worker see an elderly woman sleeping on the street while on patrol - complete with walking frame.
No matter who Vetsch meets, the 49-year-old journalist treats everyone with the same attitude: first and foremost, she respects the person and their life story. And these are often sad and difficult in this episode.
"Then you are a different person"
Like the fate of pensioner Hausi, whom Vetsch meets.
Hausi is a pensioner from the Bernese Oberland. After an operation, he got into financial difficulties, lost his home and is now homeless. "Life on the street is hard. I've been beaten up and robbed three times. Luckily I was able to escape," he says.
The man from Bern lives on his AHV, he doesn't want to beg. It is important for him to be able to wash his clothes regularly and to shower and shave regularly. "When you're showered, you're a different person, you're fit again," he says.
Hausi could go to his family, who have offered to help him. But he wants to master his fate himself. Hausi's goals: to become debt-free and find an apartment, to "make it" and be able to go to a wrestling festival again.
Ferruccio also sleeps outdoors under a bridge in the center of Zurich. He has had an eventful life and several bouts of cancer. And often sleeps outside - even in the bitterly cold winter. Even though there are several emergency shelters in Zurich. There is too much going on there, it is sometimes restless and the police have to intervene. There are also house rules and other people in need with their difficult and sad stories.
Ferruccio doesn't want to complain though, he says: "I'm a fighter". He doesn't want pity, he has chosen this kind of life. His dream: to have his own caravan again. His last one was moldy.
These are stories from everyday life in Zurich that make you think - from one of the richest cities in the world. Mona Vetsch says of the situation with the homeless woman: "It really makes me sick."
Vetsch concludes: "Life on the street has many faces. I'm experiencing that impressively these days. But they all have one thing in common: every night, every day is a struggle."
