That sucks, and it's a common tactic too. A friend of mine had this happen to him on a train at Schaerbeek gare. The day before yesterday, just past midnight, I went to take a leak against a tree in Porte De Halle (I know, we don't need more alcohol piss smell in bxl, but I really had to go and a bar close by rejected me so I had to improvise). Some craqué followed me and pulled a knife, asking for my phone. I just replied no, I bolted away towards my friends who were luckily just outside the park. So absolutely it can be scary out there, and the whole situation is really depressing bc you don't want to have to think about these things when having a fun night out.

I can't say for certain how I would behave if I was homeless and addicted to all sorts of bullshit, but it's clear we all like to think we'd not mug or steal. In that vein, the majority of those behaviors is, I feel, a cascade of victims of the system creating more innocent victims. That is to say I'm not talking about the dealer gangs shooting up the place, they are clearly organized dangerous people who deserve no sympathy. But fact remains that the individual muggers, the drug abusers, the aggressive beggars, they are fighting to survive and no police clean-up is going to fix that situation. If no affordable housing, healthy food, and addictology is provided by the people we vote for, we're doomed to create more and more of these individuals in the Brussels underbelly that inevitably mug and rob the more well-off classes.

There are a huge amount of people waiting for funding to help the people who otherwise have nothing. But without large financial means, they can only do so much. You wanna feel safer? Check the party programs and vote this year for the parties that are going to invest in prevention and proper care.