“Health… I suppose just health,” Jan says when asked what he wishes for in the new year. But he isn’t sure. He hesitates, searching. More guessing than answering—trying to remember what people usually say in moments like this.
“Is health enough?”

There is no answer to the second question. Jan is afraid to dream, afraid to think about anything for himself. His stomach feels heavy with a hard knot of unprocessed fear. He knows how to think about where he’ll collect cans today and how much he’ll get for a bag of bottles. He no longer knows how to think about how to stop drowning on dry land.

We’re standing under a bridge in Warsaw, beside a drainage tunnel that has become his home. The dark, narrow space feels as though it has swallowed him and doesn’t want to let him go. He’s afraid to leave it, afraid to lose it. But it isn’t the tunnel that’s to blame—he blames himself. Five years ago, he fell asleep at the wheel of his own life and crashed into a growing pile of problems. Memories from years ago—his family, his brother, the home they once shared—tighten around his neck like a noose. They’re hard to talk about, and even harder to return to.

Jan stands slightly hunched. He curls inward from the cold and from the awkwardness of being asked about dreams. His face, deeply lined with worry, makes him look older than he is. He rubs his grey hands, rough and stiff like sandpaper, trying to warm them. He shifts his weight from foot to foot like a traveller at a bus stop where the bus never comes. Hardest of all is meeting his eyes, because that’s where his sadness lives: complete helplessness, and the loss of any belief that he deserves more than the tunnel behind him.

We helped Jan. With us, he took his first small step back toward dreaming. He was taken to a warm, safe place. That had to come first—the frost could have killed him. This is another life saved this winter thanks to your support and the help you make possible.