Night Shelter
Abrigado is a centre run by the National Committee for Social Defence (CNDS), located in Bonnevoie. It is well known for its distinctive container building, which many people have at least seen from the outside, if not passed by regularly.
Abrigado provides a safe space for people struggling with addiction, offering both a supervised drug consumption room and a night shelter for those in need. The night shelter opens its doors at 10pm. Many of the people who spend the night there are regulars, greeted by name by the support workers on the late shift.
The facility has 30 beds for men, 11 for women, a communal lounge, and bathrooms with showers. On an average night, between 25 and 30 beds are occupied.
According to coordinator Nadia Baciotti, who has been working night shifts for 17 years, the primary aim is to offer people a roof over their heads and a space where they feel safe and protected. The only prerequisites for a bed are that the person must be at least 18 years old and must have a contract from the supervised drug consumption room.
Since the night shelter opened at the end of 2003, nearly 3,400 such contracts have been signed. As needs have evolved over time, so too has the shelter's approach. A substitution programme was introduced during the pandemic, with a nurse visiting each morning at 6.30am to provide substitution medication to those who have spent the night.
Over the years, Luxembourg's drug scene has changed. When Baciotti first started working at Abrigado in 2009, heroin was the main drug in use. Now, there has been a sharp increase in cocaine and crack. The drug consumption room is set to open at night from October, adapting to these changing patterns.