Introduction
This essay is based on the field work done in Cuttack district, Odisha in the year 2020 on a few select shelter houses for the homeless. One begins with a brief account of what homelessness means and why it is growing as a phenomenon before one describes the issues in the shelter homes in Odisha.
Homelessness is the state of having no home or permanent place of residence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines “homelessness” as the state of people who do not have a regular dwelling because they are unable to obtain and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or because they do not have a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence.[i] This is not an issue that is confined to poorer countries alone.
It is a problem that affects people across the globe including in a wealthy country like the United States of America. In the United States, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) brings out a report on homelessness in the country each year. Its report for 2019 found that more than 567,000 people were homeless on a single night in January of that year. That figure does not give a complete picture of the extent of homelessness in the country, however, because the homeless population is constantly shifting. The number of people who experience homelessness at some time during the year is much greater than the number of people who are homeless on a given night. For example, HUD found that in 2016 more than 1.4 million Americans relied on a homeless shelter or transitional housing for at least part of the year. [ii]
In India, there are an estimated 1.8 million homeless individuals, with 52 per cent living in cities. A further 73 million families live in substandard homes. (IGH, 2018; Habitat, 2019).[iii] Despite the government’s ‘Housing for All-2022’ scheme, government authorities razed 53,700 dwellings in 2017, evicting 260,000 people for reasons such as slum-free ‘city-beautification’ initiatives (HLRN, 2018).[iv] Recent demolitions for the G 20 events have also been reported. [v]
Homelessness in Odisha
Nearly 15 per cent of the population of Odisha lives in urban areas which is the lowest among the major states in the country. With growing urbanization, people from rural areas are migrating to cities in search of livelihood. The increasing urban homelessness, poverty, and poor quality of living of people in slums have been a matter of concern for inclusive urban development.
The Special Commissioner on Homeless appointed by the Supreme Court of India in its report estimated that at least one per cent of the population of cities is homeless.[vi] People are living in temporary structures without roofs and walls under plastic sheets, tarpaulins, and thatched roofs in railway stations, bus stands, garbage-dumping yards, and at the end of the colonies by waste pits and nalas in the city.
Natural calamities like cyclones and heavy rain often batter the structures and temporary houses in slums. About 162 slums in Brahmapur were devastated by Phailin which made thousands of families homeless. Lack of proper shelter further worsens the condition of the poor by affecting their livelihood, health, and security of women, children, and elders. The urban poor constitute one-fourth of the total poor of the country and the number has been increasing. [vii]
The Odisha government, in turn, has responded with schemes such as swadhar greh. One focuses on three functioning swadhar greh in Cuttack. The intention of the government is good but the stories from the ground highlight the deep-seated discriminations that women face in a patriarchal society, including from their own families at one end and the dismal state of functioning of the shelter homes at the other, where officials show prejudiced attitude towards women. One attempt here is to show how the swadhar greh are governed, the rules that become obstacles for the women, the attitudes of officials and the plight of the women who live there.
The first shelter house studied was A[viii], established in the year 1972. The house had 30 members though the numbers tend to fluctuate. The second one is B which began as a voluntary organization registered under the society registration act 1860 and was established in 1985 and was then under the scheme of Swadhar Greh. It was working as a rehabilitation centre for children, women, and elders in distress. The strength of the house was 300 and it was basically for girls in the age group of 5 to 18. The third was C and was for women in the age group of 18 to 45. It was registered under the society registration act XX1 1860. It was established in the year of 1985.
Shelter homes and some field notes
All the swadhar greh under this scheme was monitored by the District Collector who is the Chairperson of the shelter house. The Chief Medical Officer, the Superintendent of Police, the District Social Welfare Officer, the Women and Child Development Officer, and the representative of the Panchayat Raj Institution are the members of the shelter house. In every swadhar greh, there is a resident superintendent who is supposed to take care of the inmates in the shelter house and there is a counsellor whose work is to submit the report of every inmate in the shelter house every month. An office assistant is appointed to help in marketing and arranging things and a guard, but generally, there is no watchman in maximum cases. All the swadhar greh are under the profile of the District Commissionerate of Police.
The process runs roughly in the following fashion. If the police find any woman for more than 24 hours on the street, they try to contact the nearest shelter house and shift the women according to its availability. According to the superintendent of one Swadhar Greh, if the police found any women at night, she was not immediately shifted to the shelter house. This was to facilitate possible sexual exploitation of these women. Thus, the organizational structure meant to provide safety to homeless women itself turns against it.
Some differently abled women also stay in the same shelter houses but have no separate assistance. Food is supposed to be given four times but usually only lunch and dinner are served. The women in the shelter homes need personal care and emotional support but the superintendents believe that beating them up (mada mariba) was the only way to control them. According to the scheme, the shelter house should be near the health centre, and police station but this was not the case. The shelter houses are often very dirty and the women are prone to falling ill. It was particularly hard for them to manage during the COVID period. The scale of the problems and inadequate resources means that individual attention to inmates is not given.
[i] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art. 25 Para. 1, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[ii] https://www.britannica.com/topic/homelessness, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[iii] Global Homelessness Statistics, Homeless World Cup Foundation, 10th April 2022, https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[iv] Id.
[v] https://scroll.in/article/1045610/are-shelters-for-the-homeless-in-delhi-being-demolished-for-g20, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[vi] https://mohua.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/7NULM-SUH-Guidelines.pdf, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[vii] https://www.dailypioneer.com/2014/state-editions/urban-homelessness-in-odisha-a- cause-of-concern.html, accessed on 16th March 2023.
[viii] One has maintained the anonymity of the respondents and the shelter homes.
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Itimayee Behera is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Sociology, Pondicherry University.