This account of poverty and deviance during recent times in the city of Antwerp compares situations of the 1930's with present times. Undoubtedly social security prevented, since the end of the war, that many people feit into poverty. Still in the presence of massive unemployment, public relieve organisations, such as the O.C.M.W. (Municipal Centre for Health Care and Social Welfare) are more and more confronted with what is called precarity. About 25% of the Antwerp population is estimated to be living in a precair situation. After glancing on the near future and warningfor a number of social challenges, the article insists very much on preventional politics and coordinated total development projects in the depressed areas.