Homeless Problems

MOSCOW GOES INTO FULL LOCK-DOWN 

The homeless have no where to stay!

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

            I was abruptly awoken with an incessant buzzing sound from my mobile phone at four o´clock in the morning. Being dazed and disorientated by a puzzling dream where I'd been travelling, I wondered if I was in Dublin, Glasgow or Kishinev in the 1990's. But no, I discovered that I dwelt in an apartment in Moscow and no, it was not another student cancellation due to the imminent full scale quarantine, but a warning to be careful as an impending snow storm could loom up. I had awoken up to a city which had just recently imposed a complete lock-down where almost all citizens were obliged to remain indoors and only venture out for vital shopping trips or essential work permitted by the government such as working in supermarkets, pharmacies and hospitals. Snow was falling everywhere and very few people were roaming the streets.

            Practically all the shops, stationary, post offices and hairdressers were closed down, but strange as it sounds, not many police were patrolling the streets of my locality.

 

            NEW LAWS PASSED

 

            The Russian government has passed some draconian laws to punish anyone who violates the quarantine which insists all people must remain indoors unless there exists an urgent necessity to go out. For instance, should a person who is infected by the virus go out and infect other people he will face very heavy fines and even imprisonment. You could be fined from 15-40,000 rubles for endangering a shop assistant should you infect him or her. And in the event this infected person dies you have to pay from 150-300,000 rubles or face a prison sentence. What happens if an old person who went shopping did not know he or she was ill?

 

            THE HOMELESS

 

            The government constantly warns people, "To stay at home," but what happens if this person has no home to go to? What if he is homeless or has lost his job because of this lock-down and is rendered homeless as he can no longer pay the rent? He would still in effect be criminalized unless a police-officer uses the discretion of street-wise common sense. That is what you most notice about walking the streets on a Sunday and Monday. The homeless have suddenly been made almost completely conspicuous by the lock-down. They can no longer

hide themselves in the crowd. Save for a few migrant cleaners and shoppers, the homeless have suddenly surfaced. I am hardly the only person to notice this. Margret Satterwaite, a woman from Britain who works with groups seeking to protect women from abuse, stated: "You asked me what I have seen during the quarantine? All day today I have seen homeless people. Now, where snow has fallen everywhere they have nowhere to hide from the virus. They have been forgotten and thrown out ... They wander somewhere in the cold and blizzards with low temperatures ... They often receive contemptuous looks from a passerby, but they have a right to live also".

 

            Before the full scale lock down was enforced in Moscow I also encountered them. Some have very colorful bright characters you can't help encountering in the streets. Within the vicinity of 'The Park of the Fallen', near metro Voikovskaya. I see a young man suddenly greet an old couple with an exaggerated bow and polite address. I wonder if this is done for mockery, out of genuine eccentric respect or just to cheer them up. Perhaps he just wants to put on a performance

on the streets to entertain people? Who knows?  On the same day I found myself having to teach students not at the restaurant, but in those parks as the restaurants had closed down. Then when the main park was closed down we had to

resort to a smaller playground. When crossing the road a homeless man stopped me asked me, "What is happening?" Before I could explain to him that the main parks had been closed down because of quarantine, I had to warn him that a

tram would hit him if he did not move off the rails. Then I crossed over with my student to a bench where we had a lesson. By this time the student was a bit tense about the crisis and new rules so we decided to have lessons on-line and stay at home.

 

            WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

    

            But seeing the plight of the homeless and wondering what they could do in this crisis haunted me. How would they cope with a situation where humanitarian aid or less people in the streets could spare them some help? As in America and Scotland, the homeless can often face indifference, hostile and blatant contempt, have their property stolen or be beaten up by thugs. Many people don't understand their plight or make an attempt to empathize with them.

            When you ask some Russians what they think of the homeless and you mention the word 'bomzhi', many people will just laugh at you. It conjures up an image of drunken people sleeping on benches. "Why should we help people who are

just drug addicts, alcoholics and thieves?" Some people are terrified of them.

            A 39-year-old woman told me, "When I see them, I try to stay clear of them. I am afraid of them. Because some of them look worn out, unkempt and their skin bruised or swollen, people feel alienated.¨  

 

            Some religious think that those people don't deserved to be helped. Our answer to them is to retort, "Why should we not help those people? And how do you know they are 'evil'? Do you have a special x-ray machine that detects they are, say, 60% evil and 40% good? I think the aid worker, and storyteller Daniel Ogan put it well when he suggested to those people: "So how do they suggest we help the homeless? Do we tell them before we feed them from our soup kitchen that, "All the alcoholics and thieves should stand aside so we can feed only those who deserve it? Did Christ make a speech to the 5000 saying all those sinners must leave the crowd while I feed only those who deserve fish?" Do you stop helping people because they are 'bad'?¨

 

            There are things we can do to at least better alleviate the plight of the homeless if not fully resolve it.

            1. We can at least launch a publicity campaign where we educate people into making them aware that the homeless problem is very complex and that being homeless encompasses a wide groups of people such as refugees, evicted people, women fleeing from abusive partners, orphans, people out of prisons and people who have been cheated out of their apartments by black estate agents. I and Daniel Ogan have met such agents preying on old people and averted the worst scenario. And yes, we have to help people who are alcoholics because it is so widespread that it is unavoidable. But it is important that people grasp the idea that anyone can become homeless. The Russian writer Maxim Gorky was once homeless and so was Albert Einstein. The homeless are not from another planet. They could be you or me tomorrow! The main point is that the homeless don't have horns coming out of their ears.

            If you look at the recent statistics presented by a night-shelter in Moscow where they questioned their visitors the following picture emerges: Over 50% of the homeless who came to Moscow came in search of work. Many were cheated by employers who never paid them promised wages and abandoned them. Without having any useful trade or profession or social ties in Moscow they ended up on the streets. Suggesting they return to their home town is no solution because there is no work there.  As many as 30% of the homeless are on the streets because of family conflict. Children drive out their parents from their homes and vice versa.

            Marriages break up leaving one partner on the streets. As many as 15% are the victims of the black real estate agents who may have forced someone to sign a contract giving up their home in exchange for a bed in hospital or some cash.

            What some people could do to help those people is at least not to insult, deride or physically assault such people. If they don't want to help they can at least refrain from offending them.

            2. People can make a difference even by small gestures. Just making friendly and warm conversation with the homeless and treating them to a meal might make a difference. Those people need love and affection as they have got so used to being treated badly and believe nobody cares for them. I once noticed that a group of Russian school children in Moscow were taking the trouble to go up and help those people with food and clothes. But the main aid they were giving was their time and friendship. All it takes is a small group of like-minded people to make a decision to help some homeless people in their locality and it can at least bring some brightness to people that are otherwise very unhappy.

 

            3. On a wider scale activists should campaign for the creation of a vast network of homeless night shelters, which provide washing facilities, help to restore lost documents as well as help them to find them work. The idea that most homeless people are workshy is largely a myth. When Daniel Ogen, Jim Vail and I myself were working with the homeless we received countless requests for work. When a Russian volunteer found some of them work in a brewery it was closed down and the workers lost their jobs because they lacked work permits. So the struggle to provide work for the homeless is also tied to the fight to cut deeply rooted red tape.

 

            It is imperative that the government take steps to avoid a steep rise in the homeless which could follow the loss of jobs brought on by this Covid -19 crisis. It should also not punish the homeless for their plight. An old Russian proverb states, 'It is not a sin to be poor'. If only more people took this saying to heart!