IUESA: Today, the exact number of homeless in the world cannot be obtained since there is no exact address and information of many of these people and any comprehensive and universal definition of homelessness does not exist because the situation is different from one country to another. Urban homelessness is not a new phenomenon. Since Engels demonstrated the plight of the poor and urban homeless in the England in the “condition of working class in England” book a long time ago, but this phenomenon is seen in cities particularly in metropolises.

However, homelessness in the underdeveloped countries is often created because of lack of housing, crisis and the collapse in the housing market. According to the report of UN-Habitat, more than one billion people from the world’s urban population live in the poor housing conditions and about 100 million people are homeless in the cities. However, this phenomenon is not limited to the developing countries. For example, in the U.S., as one of the richest countries in the world, there have been nearly 600 thousand homeless people in 2014. A quarter of them were children under 18 years old. During a year more than 5.3 million Americans experience homelessness.

The situation is more acute in the developing countries. Millions of people in these countries are among the urban homeless. More than 500 million children are working in Bangladesh's major cities. Millions of people live in slums in Brazil and more than half of Mumbai's population either is homeless or live in slums that Daravy, the largest slum in the world, is the most popular of them.

Likewise, alarming statistics are seen in other cities in the developing countries. Poverty, especially rural poverty, leading to rural-urban migration is one of the main factors of urban homelessness, although other factors such as social factors, political unrest, social ostracism, and inefficient housing policies can intensify this phenomenon.

In Tehran metropolis, valuable measures have been done for organizing beggars and urban homeless people in recent years. For example, more than 34thousand urban homeless people were organized in 2013 according to the reports.

Increasing urban homeless people such as beggars, child labor, addicts, and other groups in Tehran, that its sample is the bulk of drug addicts in Shush square, shows that more basic strategy should be adopted in this regard. It should be addressed with multi-sectoral approach in macro-scale because the existence and this population increase are considered as a black spot on the board of the largest city in Tehran. It is not proper for a city that its management that has shown a significant and honorable attempt for obtaining global situation and credit to be the gathering place for urban homeless people.

Now it seems that if Tehran Municipality discipline plan is accompanied by other organizations’ cooperation, it can decrease significantly social damages in Harandi neighborhood.

In this plan, it is supposed to cultural and social approaches to be on the agenda along with preventive measures and not to look socially disadvantaged people as guilty ones. The issue that was not highlighted before and because of its absence, social damage has been intensified in this neighborhood constantly.

Source: Tasnimnews agency

Date : October 20, 2015

news code: 893368