Homeless in Nuuk: A Man’s Struggle Amid Greenland’s Geopolitical Spotlight

Svend Jensen is Inuit with Danish heritage from his mother’s side of the family. Like Jensen, most people Media Milwaukee spoke to in Greenland are of Danish descent, revealing how interconnected Greenland and Denmark are.

“I am very proud of being a Greenlandic person,” Jensen said. “But most of the rules are made by the Danish government.”

Despite Jensen having Danish heritage, he has only been to Denmark once, when he was 11-years-old. Jensen was born in Sisimiut, Greenland, in 1982 and arrived in Nuuk, Greenland, when he was 7-years-old. Nuuk is where his father’s side of the family resides.

Jensen has three younger brothers and one older brother who live in Denmark with his mother. But his father, who was a fisherman, died in 2023 after battling cancer, causing Jensen to turn towards alcohol to mask the pain.

“I became a drinker, like I became a drinker very much,” Jensen said. “And I lost my home because of that.”

Jensen is one of roughly 500 Greenlanders who are homeless, according to the World Population Review.

There are a few homeless shelters in Greenland, but because of Jensen’s alcohol problem, he cannot sleep in the shelter, except when he is sober. With shelters not an option for Jensen, it begs a question: “Where do homeless people in a place as cold as Greenland sleep?”

“Most of [the time] is [in] streets, stairs and buildings,” Jensen said.

Jensen said a lot of his friends are drinkers, adding he is “very lonely” because he has no friends who do not drink. He said there is alcohol problem in Greenland.

“A lot of people drink a lot,” Jensen said.

When asked why he thinks there is a drinking problem in a place as frigid as Greenland, he said he didn’t know; however, he said that drinking may relate to homelessness, saying that there are a lot of people who share similar stories with him.

“I have been seeking help [from the government] for three years now,” Jensen said. “But no result from it.”

Prior to becoming homeless, Jensen was a fisherman like his father, and he worked in the mines as a geological assistant, seeking gold and other minerals.

As the Danish government enacts policies governing Greenlanders, companies extract gold and other minerals from Greenland, and Jensen is left to survive in a stairwell, according to Jensen.

“I have showed my personality to the government, seeking help, and never get a result from it,” Jensen said. “I don’t have a secret of my life for [the] government. They know all about me.”

Although Greenland has come into the geopolitical spotlight because of its value for national security, critical mineral mining, and trade routes, the struggles of Greenlanders like Jensen are being overshadowed, but he is neither angry nor upset.

“Angriness and upsetness [are] not my personality,” Jensen said. “I forgive most to those who treat me very badly. I’m not a terrorist.”

Questions surrounding the potential of Greenland’s independence loom large, but are not Jensen’s most pressing wishes. He said the “separation from country to country” is something he doesn’t think about.

“I care more about the whole world helping each other, work with each other, to get more happiness or wellness,” Jensen said.

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into Greenland’s people, history, and culture. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available on Edge of the Arctic: Greenland, the Land of the People.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club, and a private donor.