Pope Francis has said several times that we cannot remain indifferent to the homeless and wandering refugees. Tonny Van Montfoort from Antwerp shared this opinion from his own experience. It led him to a lived-in and thorny activism. Tonny died last Wednesday at the age of 58 from cancer, he will be buried next Thursday.
Experienced expert
Twenty years ago, Tonny Van Montfoort was one of the founders of ‘t Vlot street ministry, with marginalized people as its target group, including homeless people and drug users. He was an ‘expert by experience’ and had been calling on the community for many years to be open and stand up for the weak. This also includes people with an addiction.
“I come from a different ‘user period’, a period when I used heavily,” he said in October last year Church & Life. ‘I started using around the age of fifteen and that’s why I didn’t finish high school. Being sent away from school had a deep impact. That’s why I don’t have a diploma, and that affected me later. There were many less pleasant years. I ended up in dark spheres in Rotterdam.
A person at the bottom is treated like a dog, humiliated, locked up…
One of the turning points was when I saw a boy in prison who had hanged himself from the radiator because he was not given replacement medication. The smarter users are not bothered.’
Activism
In Rotterdam, Tonny got to know the Protestant Paulus Church and Reverend Hans Visser, a well-known advocate for the homeless and drug users. ‘There was a strange combination there of conservative Protestant faith and far-reaching social commitment. There I learned about concepts such as the syringe patrol (who collects used syringes, ed.), activation and epidemic control. It was the time of HIV/AIDS, but few know that hepatitis C caused more deaths. Harm reduction, damage limitation is what the approach is called. Couldn’t we do that in Flanders too? My activism grew. Misery comes from stigmatization, I realized.’
Van Montfoort himself became ill around 2000: pleurisy, a poor disease that affects you if you live on the street. ‘We are not welcome anywhere and that hurts.
We lost friends, but were not welcome at their funerals.
I know people for whom their children, who can no longer live with them, are the only reason to continue living. How many refugees, often ex-child soldiers and traumatized people, turn to drugs to more or less cope with the misery of the streets. Please note, there is more honesty on the street than in the highest echelons of society.’
After four years of activism, Van Montfoort asked the diocese of Antwerp to start something similar to that in Rotterdam. Out of demand, ‘t Vlot grew as a street ministry, which over the years acquired an increasingly broader target group: drug users, homeless people, displaced people and people without papers. Faithful presence is the hallmark. Funeral services are also an important part of their work.
Famous father
Tonny is the son of Henk Van Montfoort (1931-2002), a well-known presenter, singer and actor. Today he looks at his father with admiration because he chased his dream.
‘For me, ‘t Vlot is certainly a beautiful story. I am also proud of the syringe patrol and the campaign against hepatitis C. My last theme is dying with dignity. That has to do with religion. People need it, even if they are not religious or call themselves religious.’
• More information about ‘t Vlot: caritasvlaanderen.be/nl/t-vlot
