Homelessness and Social Displacement in Russia

Homelessness in Russia

Research Conference on Homelessness

Paris

18 September 2009

Dr. Svetlana Stephenson

Homelessness and poverty

• homeless people as ‘undeserving’ poor (Morris, 1993) • ‘disreputable’ poor (Matza ,1966)• displaced poor

‘An agent’s position in social space is expressed in the site of physical space where the agent is situated (which means, for example, that anyone said to be “without home or hearth” or “homeless” is virtually without social existence)’ (Bourdieu, 1999, p.124)’Their main fault seems to be that they are situated outside territorial communities, and this displacement also almost universally signifies their transgression of moral boundaries.

The key causes of homelessness in Russia

The re-emergence of mass homelessness in Russia in the 1990s-2000s is linked to

• economic and forced migration – the growing problem of undocumented residents

(Russian migrants and so called gastarbeitery), having to keep alive either by dependence on their legally established relatives or by working in the streets

• marketisation of housing• erosion of enterprise based social systems

Erosion of enterprise-based social systems

• Vast social welfare functions of state enterprises• Reform of social protection entailed a relegation

of responsibilities for housing by the enterprises to the municipal authorities

• Enterprises provided a locus for all types of relationship associated with close-knit communities – be they neighbour, kin or friendship ties.

• Having lost corporate economic and social support and lacking access to state welfare, unskilled and poor individuals became vulnerable to homelessness

• Average length of homelessness is 7 years• 80% men

• 24% secondary education

• 66% vocational education

• 9% primary education

• 1% uneducated

• 96% are Russian citizens

• The majority are aged between 25 and 45 years

2005-6 survey of homeless people

2005-6 survey of homeless people

436 interviewees in 7 regions

• 38% family causes• 19% property fraud• 11% were discharged from prison• 11% were evicted• 10% sold their housing• 3% voluntary homeless• 2% care-leavers

Displacement and re-placement

displaced people try to exercise their own ‘re-placement’ strategies – by moving to peripheral spaces of the country, switching on to the informal economic markets and developing their own webs of personal relations and ties

Conditions leading to long-term poverty and exclusion

• low/unpredictable earnings from street activities;• a risk of physical violence• health risks• legal obstacles to employment and re-housing• harassment and persecution by the agents of

social control• lack of access to facilities of rehabilitation. • low degree of social cohesion within the street

community

• 61,1% of the homeless people experienced physical violence since becoming homeless.

• Only 60% of homeless people had daily access to hot food

• About a half of the interviewees tried to get housing and registration without result

• Over one third did not even try due to a lack of funds, documents or a lack of hope

2005-6 survey of homeless people

• Current economic crisis has led to an increase in the numbers of “new “ homeless.

• St.Petersburg’s ‘Nochlezhka’ reports that the number of new clients in the first three months of 2009 increased 30% compared to the same period in 2008. Most of these people have no money to rent their housing after having lost their jobs.

Changes in social protection legislation

The Law ‘On the foundations of social services for the population in the Russian Federation’ of 15 November 1995 :people without fixed abode, together with other groups in a ‘difficult life situation’ are entitled to support from social protection bodies (such as placement in temporary shelters, residential homes and material assistance).

Lack of facilities

• According to the Ministry of the Interior data of 2002, there were 4 mln street homeless people in Russia, and 6 mln “hidden” homeless

• There are about seventy special social assistance institutions for people without fixed abode, with 8,000 places. The city of Moscow now has twelve night shelters with a total of 1,600 places

• In St.Petersburg there are 300 hostel places for 10,000 street homeless people

Residential rights = social, economic and political rights

Unregistered individuals have major obstacles with obtaining

• legal employment

• civil and political rights

• access to social benefits

• non-emergency health care

• access to housing (including homeless shelters!)

The experience of the unsolved threat of poverty

The newly prominent visibility of experiences of poverty and social displacement can produce different effects:

• the undermining of the citizenship of those who are marginalised and criminalised;

• or, conversely, a new awareness of citizenship rights as part of the need for more comprehensive social cohesion.

Poverty as a perceived cause of social disintegration

‘The most destitute and hopeless segment of the homeless people…beg, rummage through rubbish, steal, become carriers of infectious diseases and originators of fires, create moral discomfort for the members of the public. ‘ (Homelessness, the Russian Social Encyclopaedia)

Poverty as the cause of crime

“Because of their dirty, ragged clothes and shoes the bomzhi are expelled from public places and they have to roam the streets looking for night shelter. This leads to frequent aggression, violation of public order, coming together with similar bomzhi in cellars, underground water pipes, dug-outs and dachas. Bomzhi unconsciously develop spontaneous protest against their non-acceptance by society and this leads to muggings, vandalism and more serious deviations.”

(Zavialov and Spiridonova, 2000, p.69).

Repressive re-placement

“These people need help and not prohibitive measures. Naturally, they influence the criminogenic situation, but mostly they affect the sanitary–epidemiological condition of the city. Unkempt sight, specific smell, and of course Muscovites and visitors do not like encountering lice. That is why the militia removes this category. This removal mainly aims to provide social and medical help in co-operation with other agencies and not to repress. He is not a law-breaker, he is a citizen, but he needs help” (police officer, Moscow)