The attitude of general population about omelets people is that they are engaged in beggary. Such a misplaced belief needs a serious reflection based on the fact that the homeless population comprises not only of beggars but construction workers, fruit vendors, Coles, hand cart pullers, catering workers, domestic workers. The homeless In Iambi has a different profile compared to other cycles of India. They are already connected to the city economy through engaging In occupations that help the city to function well.
Most of the respecters and domestic workers in the city are homeless. Also, most of the homeless people live with families. The census of India defines homeless population as the persons who are not living in census houses. A census house is referred to as a ‘structure with roof. Although this is the definition which is used to describe the homeless population, there are still problems of reliable estimation of the homeless and these problems surface during surveys conducted for Indian cities.
Social worker Baby Mate has defined homeless as ‘ people with sky above and earth below. It it estimated that there are about 78 million homeless people In India. Misplaced Public Perception About Homeless The problem of estimation lays not only In the definition but also ;n the attitudes of the enumerators I. E. The teachers who are employed for enumeration during the census. An example of the negative attitude of the enumerators towards the homeless became evident during the homeless survey of Delhi.
The exercise was carried out from February 27 to March 1 by Census officials and enumerators were guided by non-government organizations working with homeless citizens. It was later brought out by the Nags that were involved in the exercise that the enumeration process was far from being satisfactory. In many instances, census enumerators simply list a group of homeless people as part of the same family whether they are related or not”, Indo-Global Social Service Society member Indus Parka’s Sings said In a press conference held In March, 2011 to discuss the problems faced during the census.
Saved Naifs Raman of MONGO Butterflies said: “Enumerators at Annulled were tasked with surveying homeless children. However. They refused to venture out told in the press conference that the Nags had to pursue the enumerators and in many cases the enumerators did not even show up. This sort of an attitude of numerators not only raises concern over the reliability of estimation of homeless which comprise about 78 million of the population of India but also raises a concern over the root/ origin of such an attitude.
This is not only about the attitudes that the enumerators or the state have towards the homeless but it is about the attitude that the general public shares with the state towards the homeless. Whenever there is someone seen residing on the pavements, or near traffic signals or under the flyovers the common perception that people share about that person is that he/she is a useless person who would either be a criminal or a beggar. This common perception manifests in the harassment of the homeless by the police under the banner of Bombay Beggary prevention Act, 1959 which criminals beggary.
Under this act beggars may be sent to institutions or may bail themselves out by paying money. The police on most occasions considering majority of the homeless as beggars and a burden to the civilized society abuses, exploits and arrests them. The prevalent misuse of such an act which has been often termed as archaic and draconian by various Nags working for human rights has its roots in the blind belief that the homeless are a burden and a threat to the society.
Such a misplaced belief needs a serious reflection based on the fact that the homeless population comprises not only of beggars but construction workers, fruit vendors, collies, hand cart pullers, catering workers, domestic workers. The society has a tendency to overlook such a large working population which plays a very important role in the development processes. A study- Living Rough: Surviving City Streets, conducted over 2006-07 by New Delhi based Centre for Equity shows that the society, at large, not only tries to render them invisible but also blames them for their situation.
The study found that Just 28% of he homeless live on beggary and most of the beggars were old widows and persons with disability who had no other choice. About half of the sample population were working as casual wage laborers or in unstable occupations like rickshaw pulling, construction labor, boot polishing, rag picking etc. These are people who are ignored daily instead of being acknowledged for their contribution towards the society. These are people who are deprived of their fundamental right- the right to life with dignity (article 21).
Homeless in the policy There is a lack in universally agreed definition of homelessness and this confusion along with the readily acceptable ignorance of the civilized people allows the policymakers to totally forget about the homeless people. There is no national policy on homelessness. Homeless people fight with problems related to food, they try to survive police atrocities and their hunting down by authorities such as city municipal corporations leading to their eviction from even their dwelling places such as footpaths.
Majority of them don’t have any dignified visible existence as they do not have ration cards, voter ids. They cannot access government services and schemes such as PADS in absence of ration cards. The homeless continuously live at risk. They can be hit by cars while sleeping on footpaths. They are exposed to extreme weather notations such as extreme cold and excessive rainfall which result in sickness. Pollution makes them physically sick and when they go to government hospitals, they become victims of bad treatment.
Eventually they become distrustful of going to government hospitals and either they succumb to their sickness or private treatment robs them of their money. The homeless children face an uncertain future with lack of education, child abuse, forced labor, illness and drug addiction. All major cities in all States and Union Territories which have a population of more than five lack have o be provided with night shelters in a ratio of one night shelter per lack of population equipped with basic facilities such us electricity, water arrangements, toilet facilities, sanitation arrangement, and beddings I. . , blankets, mattresses, and jute mats (Supreme Court Order dated 10 February 2010 and 05 May 2010). Despite this order of the Supreme Court the state governments have failed miserably to shelter the homeless. “The states – Tamil Nadia and Attar Pradesh showed average level of compliance with the court orders, building 30-60% of the required shelters. Ten states put up only 20-30% of the shelters required to house the poor.
These include Andorra Pradesh, Briar, Chastiser, Gujarat, Shorthand, Karakas, Madhya Pradesh, Odious, Restaurants and Outranked. Two states, the court commissioners said, which showed willful disobedience of the court orders and not set up even 20% of their targeted shelters were Maharajah’s and West Bengal. In both the states, no functional shelters exist till date”. Even in places where these shelters exist there are no proper facilities of drinking water, toilet facilities, beddings, blankets etc.
There are also cases where families want to sleep together but they face difficulty because errantly there are only separate male and female sleeping areas in shelters. Many of the homeless people don’t even know about the existence of such shelters and their location. Serious concerns have also been raised by civil society organizations over the locations of these shelters questioning their distance from the areas where there are large concentrations of the homeless. It has been observed that most of the homeless are located in areas where they work.
These areas have requirement of such people and if the shelter is located at a place which is far away from such areas, omelets find it difficult to settle there as it affects their livelihood. The problems of the homeless and homelessness need to be addressed more seriously by the State and the State should ensure the well being of the people who are not Just beggars but who form a significant working population of the country. Many of the civil society organizations have been advocating the rights of such invisible population and the organizations for a better future of the homeless.
There is an urgency to resolve the issue of homelessness and protect the homeless from the onslaught of economic voltmeter as it should be a matter well understood that without the development of the homeless there is no development at all as they are major contributors in the economic growth and development of the country. Section -1 Literature Review Literature study shows that homeless people issues are discussed in relation to other problems of migration, rural distress, inalienable policy etc. Inalienable State’s development discourse-urban unilateralism.
Inalienable theory holds that the elimination of poverty (both domestically and worldwide)can best be secured through free markets and free trade. Unilateralism in contemporary times can be characterized as a producer of extremely diverse trajectories of development and underdevelopment, and simultaneously a begetter of a changing urban order David Harvey talks about the right to the city . He adds that right to the city is more than a right of individual access to the resources than the city embodies: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city more after our heart’s desire . (Harvey,2008).
In this context we need to understand that who have access to the right of resources over land in the city. As mentioned earlier, , 95% of legal urban space was used and pet for the benefit of the most privileged 5% city population. In the transformation to a inalienable city, poor is pushed from the domain of public space. The inalienable process created financial assets in the cities(land or real estate traded on financial markets ). With increasing volume of these processes , urban poverty prices have shot up, making the cities more and more expensive and capable of fetching higher returns from investment.
To this process to happen, we need to create more land and more space, consequently it is an imperative that the poor are driven off. This is offered as annihilation of space (Harvey,2008). The process is legalized through legal action and city is cleansed of those who are left behind the globalization process. Poor Driven Off, gentrification of land Investment Friendly Cities, through more space needed. Increase of Urban Property Prices. Profit through land.
Financial assets creation and transaction On the other hand, states role as a welfare state gets a backseat in the urban agenda. In the place of commitment to social housing, there has emerged a legal war on the poor. The emerging lack of concern of the State towards accommodating the or in the city as an integrative part essentially marks the end of an ideal in which the poor in the city were entitled to minimally decent housing and other opportunities through state intervention, to access education and experience a steady advancement in their lives (Mitchell, 2001).
The development discourse is inherently biased against poor people. The Judiciary and law are some of the rights from which homeless can look upon for their rights. We discuss briefly about the law Homeless and Law. Supreme Court Judgment. Francis Coracle Mulling vs.. The Administrator, Union of India on 13 January, 1981 -The eight to life enshrined in Article 21 cannot be restricted to mere animal existence. It means something much more than Just physical survival. The right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare necessaries of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter and facilities for reading, writing and expressing oneself in diverse forms, freely moving about and mixing and commingling with fellow human beings. Directive Principles Of State Policy Article 39 {certain principles of policy to be followed by the State} (b) that the wineries and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to submerse the common good.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Article 1 1(c) The right to adequate housing, also referred to as the right to housing is “the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity. ” It requires “adequate privacy, adequate space, adequate security, adequate lighting and ventilation, adequate basic infrastructure and adequate location with regard to work and basic facilities – all at a reasonable cost. ” Parties must ensure security of tenure and that access is free of coordination, and progressively work to eliminate homelessness.
Forced evictions, defined as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection”, are a prima facie violation of the Covenant. Section 2 Case Studies Case studies were conducted in different locations in Iambi. One was in Maim, second in Agrarian (Mannered) and the last in Giovanni. Case Study One- Maim The homeless community lives near the Maim railway station.
There are about fifty families in the place. We were able to talk and understand the situation of homeless in the area, by talking to individuals of the area. Vida (Name Changed), is thirty years old and has been living there since her marriage when she was twenty years old. She has three children and makes bamboo baskets for a living. The coast of one bamboo is hundred rupees and the baskets are sold for around seventy rupees, (according to her) thereby not allowing them to make a profit.
When questioned why do they continue this line of work, she responded by saying, pet barney key lie such o karma ho Guyana (we have to do it to earn a livelihood) Abdul (Name Changed), was born on the very road when his parents use to live here, his parents are from Locknut. He is part of the two or three Muslim families of the area. He is around 28 years old and he worked as the daily wage laborer until he lost his leg in an accident on the same road. He talked to us about the health facilities and provisions, if there of many in the community, when recounted the negligence on the part of authorities.
The BMW authorities come every day to chase them away from the area. Each time, hey throw all their belongings (utensils, clothes, and other personal items) behind the wall that runs along the pavement. If they don’t do this, the police pick up their belongings and take it away. Many times they have had to bribe the policemen and get their items back. The young people generally go to school and once they finish their education, they work with the baskets. Rave (Name Changed), the leader of the group says that is our work, what is what we have always done this’.
He says most young people after finishing school work here itself; some do look for other options. This group is from Restaurants and Rave says, came here because they no longer could practice their profession in their village near Mount ABA. He says, the forests no longer had bamboo, which they use for making baskets and other products; here at least they buy in bulk, which comes down to 50 rupees for one piece, which they use to make baskets. Rave told us that the time of the monsoon is particularly hard. The bamboos become wet, thereby reducing their ability to produce goods and thereby make a living.
They have to depend on the plastic sheets, which are expensive, and cost about five hundred rupees. The BMW, according to the, are more troublesome at this time of the year. There are also a lot of malaria cases, especially in the monsoon. The hospitals they visit are Baby hospital, Arizona hospital. When women are pregnant, they either go back to their village, and many a times, they give birth in the street itself. These days, many women have given birth in the hospitals. During monsoon, mosquito cause havoc, huge amounts of people get malaria or Cunningham, and last year there were two deaths owing to Cunningham.
They go to the hospitals together, if that doesn’t work they generally resort to a doctor in Diehard ho they have been visiting since the past few years or use knee for their treatment. Case study-2: Agrarian- Instigating Sunlit(name changed) a mother of three is a homeless widow who lives in Agrarian in Instigating. Since the past ten years she has been living on the street with her children, with Just one carton full of clothes and some utensils to name as her belongings. She and the entire community sleep in the open without a rooftop cover their heads irrespective of the weather conditions, throughout the year.
The community stays close to a few housing societies in Instigating. Sunlit is originally from Globular district of Karakas and so are the majority of a population of around 600 homeless people living in this area. The rest are from Andorra Pradesh. Like many others from her state, Sunlit had come to Iambi in search of livelihood around 15 years ago. Working as a daily wage laborer, Sunlit and her family used to live in a slum near BARB where she used to work mostly, until the government evicted them from the place.
Since then, Sunlit and her community have been staying in this area in Instigating Sunlit earns around RSI 150 a day and manages to get employment for 15 to 20 days in a month. Most of the people in this community work as either construction workers, plumbers or NASA workers. However, with this meager amount, Sunlit is hardly able to sustain her family. When asked whether she has any savings, Sunlit replied, “at the end of the month there is no money left to be saved. Each days money is spent on food and medicines for my no place for us to save our money. The living conditions of Sunlit and the rest of the community is pathetic. To start with there is no shelter which denies them any kind of private space. Further, there is no electricity, water supply or toilet facility where hey stay. The street light serves them as the only source of light. The community accesses water from almost a kilometer away from a BMW source, where they have to fight for water daily. The people in the community pay and use the Gullah toilets which are again half a kilometer away from their place. The government’s response to this situation is one of indifference and ignorance.
There are no medical facilities or educational facilities readily accessible to the people except for a BMW school and a government hospital. Moreover, the government and even public, at large, consider he homeless as a burden and pain for the, ignoring the kind of workforce such homeless population forms. The case of the homeless of Unshaken Magna is no different. They are regularly harassed by the police, BMW and even the local residents. The local residents consider their presence in the locality as a scar on the beauty of the locality.
Recently an attempt was also made to dislocate them from the locality to make way for a marriage lawn. Further, the police and a local builder joined hands to dislocate them but now the situation was under control because of the efforts of Nags and other people who came to their rescue. Case Study 3- Segovia Community. Section 3 Understanding vulnerabilities and marginality of Homeless The case studies described above have revealed the struggles of homeless community in detail. This section tries to focus on various aspects of the homeless life. The aspects discussed are 1 .
Women and Children challenged Pope arty * Women and Children 3. Health issues. 2. Destitute and mentally 4. 5. Migration and rural distress Homeless people are as whole are a vulnerable section of the society. Within this section the women and children are considered to be at a greater risk. They not only eve to navigate overcrowding, lack of space and inadequate livelihood options, they face threats of physical and sexual violence from the community people, sex traffickers, and strangers . The homeless women can be categorized as one with families and others other who stays alone.
The reason for homelessness can vary. Some of the women migrate with their husband and family and are forced to stay in the streets due to inadequate housing facilities in the urban area. There are also cases, where their husband or family abandons women. A sizeable population of abandoned mentally ill people falls in this category. Many of the women work as vendors and face harassment from the authorities on a daily basis. There has also been cases, where the women have been promised work, in the process have been sexually exploited. Adolescent girls face serious threats of being trafficked.
Girl children living on the streets are especially vulnerable to visualization, exploitation and sexual abuse. A six-year-old girl at Puss Roundabout, disorders, and requires several corrective surgeries and long-term treatment. (http:// acquainted. Org/PDF/Special_Reports/homeless amended Equivalence ShivaychuddarweUDFher conditions, pollution, insufficient clothing (especially during winters and monsoon), all contribute to their physical illness, which in most instances, goes untreated or are detected too late, making them more susceptible to various diseases.
Women also complain about negligence and refusal from doctors to treat them. In Bangor,Bangor women reported that 90 per cent of babies are born in the hospital, while 10 per cent are delivered in the community with support of untrained nurses. Some of these women also fear visiting hospitals since participants stated that doctors sometimes physically or verbally buses bathhouses shout during labor pain. (http://sesquicentennials Corticosteroids/homeless women and omeneandhKGBiviolence.Shivalnchuddars Outfoxed problem facing this section. Lactating mothers and children are the worst sufferers in this scenario. Homeless children from birth are at health risk. Unhygienic sanitary condition, high exposure to pollutants, inadequate nutrition and housing facilities contribute to greater chances of contracting diseases and also instances of infant mortality. Studies on homeless children United States show that they children exhibit developmental difficulties far rater than the operates at large-greater even when compared to poor but housed children.
Most of the children are devoid of opportunity to attend school and those who do, drop out at an early age. Nags like Global Visiting Iambi have libertarianism’s organizations have volunteers to teach the children at the place of residence. Most of times, the people are not aware of the government schemes available for them. While certain laws and provisions led to difficulty for women with children as they are separated from one another and are housed in separate shelter homes. Another tresses for the homelessness is the possibility of domestic violence from her husband.
Such acts often go unreported and they end up being victimized. This has a negative affect on their psychological wellbeing. Many of the mentally ill patients are rendered homeless. In 2007, following the case of Exegetical Angina (aExegeticaldAnginaund wandering in the streets of south Delhi) the Delhi high court ordered for establishing shelter for mentally ill homeless women. However, several years after the Judgment, no progress has been done on this regard. * Destitution Destitution is defenestration’s poverty. (Williams 2000)
Destitution is marked by an almost complete lack of resources – financial and material- the employment, assets, assets to credit, social and family support, and networks required securing the means for a dignified survival. (Meander 2012) While, Meanders is often seen as an economic problem that can be overcome with income generation activities, destitution is generally referred to be a problem related to social welfare domain. A Welfare’s definitionWelfare’stution focuses on citizens who are unable to work for a living (e. . The elderly, people The disabilities, the chronically ill, with mental illness etc. And lack interdependencies of support (I. E. They are neither Pitheads dependents in households nor being cared for by relatives). Which seems to changeability’s destitution at the community level (Montana 1996). It compassionateness that the poor at least have one assets, which is their labor power. In India, according to Montana (1996), thoughtlessness’s are more likely than others to resort to child labor.
This resonates with Dustpan’s (1993) dustpan’s ‘economic disenfranchisement as the inability to participate in the labor market’. Exclusion from the labor market is identified as a primary route to destitution. Karl Marx has also written on the exclusion of this segment of the society from the ‘political economy, he said ‘ Political economy does not recognize the unemployed worker… The beggar, the undetached, the starving and the destitute figures which exist infringes it, but only for the eyes of doctors, Judges, gravedigger and beadles. Nebulous… Usuries which do not Usuries within the province of political economy. ‘ Marx certainly was correct about their exclusion but not about their being ‘unoccupied’, on the contrary they are the ones who take up low paying and so called undignified’ Jobs Barbara Harris-White has alarmist to unravel the features and sources of destitution, She explores how destitution is a process that begins with absence of any control over assets and loss of access to income on ones own labor. This loss of control might result from misshapenness, disenfranchisement, health emergencies, collapse or withdrawal of family support.
Destitution may also involve a loss of entitlements which is resultant of a severe social ‘expulsion’ due to ones deviance from health states, clean practices or normal sexuality which is added on to heir failure to support addiction, disability or deformity, disease or mental illness. This expulsion then results in destruction of property, unemployment, denied access to government services. Destitution is thus, a condition of social, economical and political exclusion, which requires us to look at destitution as both a state and a process, which needs to be analyzed at both the household and community levels.
According to Census of India there were 750307 beggars and vagrants (Destitute) in India in 1981. Out of total about 2/3rd were in rural area and 1/3rd in urban area. During 1981-91 there was slight decline in destitute population but it has increased during the decade 1991-2001. Sex-wise distribution of the destitute population indicates that in both urban and rural areas proportion males destitute to total destitute slightly increased during 1981-1991 but decreased during the next decade I. E. ; 1991-2001.
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Reverse pattern has been observed for the females. Destitution is not a new concern, but has always been an invisible one. Harsh Meander proposes to demonstrated problem of destitute by beginning to recognizing them and their basic needs, starting with food. In his recent book ‘Ash in the belly, Meander captures how Meanders these people access food, by picking out undigested grains from cow dung, collecting food from garbage and other dehumidifying ways, dehumidifying have the resources to cook their own meals which has an bearing on their nutrition intake.
He proposes setting up of ‘open kitchens’ like that of in case of Tamil Nadia, where educationalist and impoverished people who are unable to access adequate meals have their meals with the mid day meal system for the school going children. Similarly, In Andrea Pradesh old pandering to schools where the cooks give them meals tit the mid day multidimensionality such as these are able to create safety nets for people where they are able to access some basic necessities with dignity. These as these slowly start the process of reintegrating this population back into our communities.
Mental illness and destitution In recent years studies show that another contributing factor to destitution is mental illness, roughly 7% of Indian’s population sandiness with some form of major mental illness that is at least 70 million people across the country, according to the Indian Council for Medical Research. Yet in urban areas, at least half will remain untreated, ND in rural areas tenderhearted gap is estimated at as much as 90%, according to the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuron Sciences in Banqueter. The institutionalism and family welfare estimated that at least a quarter of Indian’s mentally illimitableness.
In Urban areas, thus a huge number of homeless people are suffering from some or the other mental illness; driven by poverty, migration and the constant marginality they face in the city. There is hardly any facilities available for these people, with some 37 institutes across the country, which can provide them he much needed care and treatment, footpath become the only place for them. Strangely, India was one of the first countries to ratify the UN Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities, but is yet to align its policies as per the convention. Health Like all other people homeless people also have he need of proper health care and they have he right to access health services like others. A large section of homeless is not in a position to meet the basic needs of food and shelter and for them health factor much later after satisfying the above two needs but their is very little data existing about their health status. They sleep in the open exposed to pollution, no safe drinking water, extreme weather conditions, flies and mosquitoes. Their food habits are very irregular and not balanced diet and left over food of the previous day.
As they cannot afford to have private health services which is very expensive in relation to their per capita income government have made provisions for free health service delivery in the government hospitals where they have the duty of providing proper health care services to them. According to sample survey conducted by Planning commission which shows that people residing in the road side even o not eve access to elementary health services and even sometimes criminality by the criminality various store-types like labeling them as criminals, beggars, thief, and so on.
Many of them are accounted sleep huger stomach and during winter season they do not have warm clothes to cover them self to protect from the bitter cold and a situation of severe crisis and life threatening for them. So the supreme court took a notice to provide shelter the homeless poor along with blanket, water facility, toilets and health amenities but till now many people are staying for the long nights under he open sky in cities like Iambi where they Waianae guaranteed such shelter.
Living in an open space with no privacy is very difficult for women and children mainly along with male members. As homeless people are mainly engaged in daily wage labor like head loaders, rag picking, construction sites, stone breaking without any safety measures [appliances provided to them they often suffer from many diseases like, head ache, back ache, physical deformity and so on. Many of them also suffer from HIVE AIDS, TAB, and hive ailment, injuries on limbs. There are a large
