OUTCASTS

We see them every day in the streets, parks and porches. They are a social stratum of outcasts who have been totally rejected by society at all times and under all political regimes. We are used to calling them a short word that became offensive the moment it appeared and sounds like a court sentence - tramps. The definition "a person with no fixed abode" which moved from police protocols into the media and then into the modern Russian language has become a real "brand" for outcasts and a scarecrow for people-in-the-street. People with no fixed abode - this definition appropriately reflects the situation of hundreds and maybe thousands of our countrymen who have no homes. 

Many of us openly feel sorry for these people but, in the best case, sympathy is expressed by throwing small change to these poor people and, in the worst case, by not noticing them at all in order to avoid cluttering up your difficult life with gloomy thoughts. Most of us have developed a kind of defensive reaction which immediately switches on when you see destitute people: we just do not notice them because we live in different worlds. We have our problems and they have theirs.

They are trying to survive in this cruel world where every day is a merciless fight for life. Homeless people, just like all other unprotected strata of the population, need help from the state.

According to some statistics, there are about 100 million homeless people in the world. It is clear that this figure is not accurate because it is not possible to count all the homeless people on the planet. As for Azerbaijan, according to unofficial information, the number of homeless people in our country exceeds 50,000. Unfortunately, there is no official statistical information about this.

You are not born a tramp…

An ordinary courtyard of an ordinary Baku house in front of the Russian embassy - in the mornings, residents of this house, as always, go to work, school, university and return home in the evenings, and do their shopping… In a word, life goes on. However, very few of these people pay attention to an old woman who has been living in this courtyard for a year. She has not moved into a new flat here and she does not come here to visit her relatives - she is homeless.

When you look at this woman from afar, you may think that this is an ordinary pensioner who simply decided to spend some time in the shadow of a tree in the courtyard and take a breath of fresh air, but when you come closer, it becomes clear that not everything is so well.

Maria Fedorovna Qurbanova (this is the woman's name) could not hold back her tears when she told us her sad story. She used to have an ordinary family - a husband and a son. They lived in a two-bedroom flat near the Nizami metro station. Her husband worked at an oil refinery, while she worked as a teacher in a kindergarten. They did everything possible and impossible for their son Ruslan to have everything he needed. Meanwhile, Ruslan only made his parents happy: he left school and entered the Oil Academy. When he was in his third year as a very promising student, he was invited to work in a foreign oil company. Upon graduating from the academy, he already had quite an influential position in the company and was well-paid.

Ruslan insisted that Maria Fedorovna leave the kindergarten since the money he made was quite enough.

"Then Ruslan bought a car. He was not a very experienced driver and I feared for him when he drove. One day, my husband and son decided to go fishing over the week-end. From the very morning, I was restless as if I felt something, but did not show it. They left at four o'clock in the morning. Ruslan was driving, and at six o'clock in the morning, I was told that my husband and son had had an accident. My husband died on the spot before an ambulance arrived, but Ruslan was alive, though he was in a life-threatening condition. He was taken to hospital, but doctors said that there was no hope since his injuries were too serious. But I decided to do everything possible to save the life of the only person I had in this world - my son. A lot of money was needed for the operation - 10,000 dollars. I did not have this money, and then I decided to pawn my flat. I did so, Ruslan had surgery, but unfortunately, it was not successful. Two months after the accident, I lost my son…

Some time later, my creditors came and demanded that I pay off my debts, which had already reached 12,000 with interest. Of course, I could not pay it off, which is why I ended up in the street. For some time I lived at my friend's, but then her husband hinted that he did not want me to stay there, and I myself understood that no-one was going to tolerate a stranger in their house. I have been living in the street for the three years since then."

Maria Fedorovna is 60 now, she is entitled to a pension, but she still cannot change her Soviet passport for an ID card. She is denied it because she is not registered anywhere. For this reason, the woman cannot get the pension she needs. She has no money, no roof over her head and no relatives… Officially, she does not exist because a person has no right to anything without documents.

Some residents of the house feel sorry for her and give her some money for food. Otherwise, no matter how humiliating and terrible it is, Maria Fedorovna has to look for food in litter containers. She sleeps on a bench at the entrance to the house.

"The most terrible thing is winter, when even a porch is unbearably cold. Where should I go? There are no doss houses for homeless people in the city. Believe me, I am so tired of all this, after my son's death my life ended, and I don't want to live."

Indeed, Maria Fedorovna's life cannot be called a life. It is just a miserable and wretched existence. Every day is just like another, and it seems to her that there will never be an end to this difficult ordeal. It seems that a person who is in trouble is forgotten by both state and society…

A global problem

The overwhelming majority of tramps ended up in the street against their own will. They were brought there by a tragic set of circumstan-ces. Although the stories of homeless people are similar to some extent, each of them is purely individual. There are probably masses of reasons why people become homeless, but the most common reasons concern housing deals.

Various international organizations, including the UN, are talking about the problem of people who have no roof over their head. According to the UN's special envoy on the right to adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, housing rights are violated in all countries of the world. Miloon Kothari links the causes of homelessness to increasing spending on housing, privatization processes, various types of speculation and the growth in migration. One of these factors is migration as a result of conflict or natural disasters. Kothari points out that poor families lose their homes or live in inappropriate housing conditions as a result of the creation of rich urban areas in many countries, accompanied by an increase in real estate prices and rents.

The number of homeless people and slums in the world is growing mainly because of the colossal lack of accessible accommodation. All countries of the world are tending to reduce state housing expenditure. For example, housing subsidies in the US federal budget fell by 28 billion dollars from 1978 to 2002. From 2.5 to 3.5 million US citizens lose their homes every year. According to the UN representative, sometimes the authorities that are not able to protect homeless and landless people try to present them as criminals. This partly explains the growing violence against these people.

Officials and rank-and-file citizens believe that these people do not want to work, and prefer a parasitical way of life. However, just like in any other stratum of society, among tramps there are parasites and also people who want to find jobs, but in most cases this dream is not fated to come true. In order not to die of hunger, tramps have no choice but to collect bottles at numerous dumps in the capital and sell them. Some of them get extra money from time to time. In this case, they can be hired to unload some cargo or do other "dirty" jobs.

Almost all countries of the world have a problem of homelessness, and every state chooses its own way of solving problems related to tramps. For example, in neighbouring Russia, a draft law has been submitted to the State Duma which provides for the mandatory registration of all citizens with no fixed abode.

The document is meant to put things right in the "system of preventing and regulating vagrancy". Specifically, the law will oblige homeless people to register every time they move from one Russian region to another. Moreover, when they live in one region, they will have to re-register every six months. 

All vagrants will be photographed, put on record and given a social registration certificate. If they do not have such a document, or if they refuse to obtain one, tramps will be arrested and held for 10 days. After a repeat detention, they will be sent to special social aid institutions for one year. The author of the law, the deputy chairman of the labour and social policy committee, Vladimir Vasilyev, said that the document guarantees the necessary socioeconomic support, psychological aid and help with employment for homeless citizens. 

It is also planned to introduce mandatory state insurance of all housing deals for people from the "risk group" - old, lonely people and graduates of children's homes.

Citizens consigned to oblivion

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security told R+ that there are no dosshouses for this category of the population in the country. According to ministry officials, there are no plans to adopt a law on homeless people, as was the case in Russia. But at the same time, employees of the ministry did not rule out the possibility that this issue will be raised in our country soon.

According to Baku and Caspian Bishop Aleksandr, when the well-known philanthropist Aydin Qurbanov was alive, the Russian Orthodox Church helped homeless people by, for example, distributing free food. Now that Qurbanov is dead, this is not being done.

As for dosshouses for homeless people; in order to set up dosshouses for homeless people it is necessary to have premises, and since there are no premises, there is nowhere for these people to stay, the Baku and Caspian bishop pointed out. 

We managed to find out that the only doss house functioning in Baku is one run by the Catholic Church. The doss house told us that there are only 10 people there at the moment, and they get food and treatment.

But unfortunately, this doss house is only a temporary shelter for homeless people because, after spending one or two months here, they are forced to leave and make way for their "unfortunate friends".

According to the chairman of the public union Assistance to Protect the Rights of Destitute and Homeless Residents of Baku, Eldar Alizada, it is not known how many homeless people there are in Baku, because no-one is keeping statistical records. But we can suppose that there are at least 50,000 of them. Alizada said that people of all ages and categories can become homeless - these are old people, young people, people without a family and whole families with children. Most of the tramps live in the capital and only a small number in Sumqayit.

According to our interviewee, no organization is helping this category of citizens. "According to world experience, the executive authorities of cities and districts, as well as municipal organizations, should deal with the problem of homeless people. They must organize free distribution of food at least several times a week. Moreover, in all developed countries, a free medical examination is organized for homeless people, because they might pose a danger to people around them, being a source of diseases like tuberculosis. Another problem is that there are no free water closets, which is why tramps have to go to the toilet in the street. There used to be five free water closets in Baku but, with the onset of capitalism, they became paid toilets. In order to go there, a homeless person has to pay 20 qapiks - he would rather spend this money on food. If in Soviet times, a visit to the bath cost a few qapiks, now you have to pay at least three manats for the pleasure of taking a shower. Where can a homeless person get this money from? Then, everyone is surprised that tramps smell like that.

"All this creates sanitary discomfort in the capital, responsibility for such a state of affairs lies totally with government agencies, specifically, the executive authorities of the city. Luckily, our capital does not have a tough climate, which is why in most cases tramps do not die of the cold like in Russia. But if the winter is frosty, we have casualties as well. It is known that in 2002, when the winter was very cold, 14 homeless people died of cold."

Religious organizations, although they are promoters of humanist ideas in Azerbaijan, are also indifferent to the problems of homeless people. Even in neighbouring Russia, religious organizations distribute hot meals among homeless people on a daily basis, whereas there is nothing like that in our country. According to our interviewee, the only change in the status of homeless people in our country was the decision of the Constitutional Court and the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers adopted in 2003. According to these documents, the Interior Ministry was instructed to register homeless citizens and give them ID cards. This procedure is carried out in the following way: a person addresses the housing department in the area where he last lived and gets a certificate confirming this fact. Then he takes this certificate to the passport department of his district where he must be given an ID card. Alizada stressed that homeless people, just like other citizens, have the right to take part in elections.

Alizada also pointed out that homeless people who need to register their documents can address his society which is located near the building of the Court for Serious Crimes. They will be received there every Saturday at 1200. 

Homelessness is a problem for many countries. World experience shows that without the participation of the state and authorities it is impossible to change the situation. To this end, it is necessary to stimulate the creation of a state (with support from public organizations) system of medical aid and social rehabilitation for this section of the population.

Change in the government's policy with regard to homeless people as citizens who have equal rights is an indispensable condition for devising a system that will ensure their return to normal life.