The Vicious Cycle of Urban Homelessness

By Shwetank Mishra
Updated version of Paper presented at the National Consultation on Homeless, 28th & 29th December 2007 at TISS.

The economic concept of Vicious cycle of poverty prompted me to start looking at homelessness in similar ways. The cycle of poverty does not quite fully explain the phenomenon of homelessness with all its dimensions. Yet both descriptions are similar in that the end recommendation is that the poor and homeless need external support in some measure to enable them to break this cycle and move out. The assumptions made in this paper draw from my experiences with urban youth in Mumbai. The paper can thus be used to understand the phenomenon but cannot be generalised to all situations. The urban homeless represent the poorest of the poor in urban society surviving with only two of the basic human needs Roti and kapda but no makan. They barely manage to survive, eking out an every day existence. However, this is an identity which leads people to conjure up images of substance abusers, pick-pockets, thieves and unclean rowdies an image which is not quite the truth; an identity that has led to their exclusion from the rest of the society except for the minimum economic interactions. This group due to its negative identity and generally shabby outward appearance has difficulty accessing basic facilities of health, shelter and protection. Most importantly they are an easy and vulnerable target even for law enforcement agencies and their very existence comes under threat with rampant violations of their constitutional, legal and human rights. Despite the fact that Article 21 of our Constitution grants its citizens right to life with dignity, homeless conditions de-dignify a person and violate all his/ her rights. According to my experience of being with homeless populations I can conclude that there are cyclical forces that keep reinforcing each other and keep a homeless person in the homeless situation. Once into the cycle a homeless cannot move out of it without external support. Yet there are exceptions and we can only learn from the opportunities that were available to them which enabled them to free themselves, so that we can replicate that environment and work towards empowering the homeless out of their deprived situations. Homeless here is taken as that section of the population which sleeps directly under the sky on footpaths, dividers, hume pipes and other open spaces like beaches, parks and railway stations. It can also include people living in temporary tenements. Assumptions of the Model: 1. It is based on experiences and data of youth 16 to 30 years among the homeless. 2. Describes only economically active population among the homeless. [Does not
differentiate between homeless migrants on the basis of their reason for coming to the city, since the only fact that matters is that they all work. The 2000 study of Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan in Delhi found out that 74% of migrants came looking for better opportunities.]

Homeless- An urban social unit The experience of working with the homeless made me realise that the homeless is an urban social unit at the very bottom of the urban economic pyramid. The problems faced by the individuals are macro issues (dealt later in the cycle concept) and therefore to have any lasting impact the solutions need to be addressed at the macro level. Also urban homelessness is a reality of today and while we may be able to reduce rural urban migration, but homelessness will continue to exist because its causes, failure of housing policy, high cost of living, space crunch etc. are urban phenomenon. We therefore need to recognize homelessness as an urban problem as well and start finding realistic solutions. The macro level picture that emerges from my past years of experience is one of what I can call a vicious cycle which keeps an individual stuck in a life on the streets. This cycle, the Vicious Cycle of Homelessness explains the facts of homelessness and also points towards possible solutions. The Vicious Cycle of Homelessness The most basic fact of a person considered homeless is the lack of a roof above his head. This leads to the creation of a number of other conditions which keep reinforcing each other, keeping a person trapped in street life. The reasons for ending up on the streets are many, ranging from migration to the city for better opportunities, family problems, misfortune and psychological problems. But once on the streets their fate accompli is common- trapped in the cycle of homelessness and its associated difficulties. The cycle can be understood by looking at the following diagram:

Housing cycle

Identity cycle

Savings Cycle

Work Cycle
Substance Abuse cycle

*Note: The thickness of the arrows has no correlation with the strength of the forces.

A person living on the streets does not have a house so cannot have a residence proof which is mostly considered as an identity proof and of credit worthiness and credibility. The lack of identity proof results in employers not hiring them in regular well paying employment. As a result the homeless are not able to have an income which allows them to save enough. Since they are not able to accumulate savings they are not able to pay the deposits and rent required for renting a space in the city of Mumbai. The city of Mumbai has a system where one has to pay a refundable deposit for renting out a place which at the very minimum is equivalent to 10 months rent plus one months rent has to be paid in advance. There can be variations to this system. For instance, if you want to rent out a place in a slum where the rent is Rs.1500 you need to have Rs. 15,000 for deposit plus Rs.1500 as one months advance rent plus commission of the broker which amounts to approximately Rs.19,000 at one time. Rents in the better slums with water supply and other basic amenities in the heart of the city are about Rs. 3500 and deposits run up to 50000 rupees. Even if homeless youth manage to save some bit from their meagre earnings they do not have access to any saving facilities that can help them add up the above required amounts. Banks do not open savings account for them since they do not have any residence or identity proof. The informal sources of savings though existent are not dependable. Thus a person without a roof ends up being caught in this cycle: no house - no identity - low paying work - no savings - no house - no apparent way of getting out without external support. Each point in this cycle has a sub cycle of its own which further reinforces the larger homelessness cycle and keeps a person on the streets. They are a) the identity cycle, b) the work cycle, c) the savings cycle and d) the substance abuse cycle. The Identity Cycle This cycle deals with two issues closely linked but operating at two different levels. At on level the identity cycle operates at the macro level and at the second level operates at the individual or micro level. This is the most complex cycle which impacts all other subcycles as well as the reason for many problems faced by the street population.

No homes/ Street living

Negative identity

Police atrocities/ false cases No regular employment No individual identification proof

No bank A/c- no savings

People living on the streets all across the country have been stereotyped and have got a negative identity as criminals, being lazy, drug addicts and every other thing except as working people. By living on the streets people become completely vulnerable to every possible abuse and atrocity. Added to this with the already existing negative identity they become an easy target for the police. The street dwellers are picked up on the slightest suspicion and they are not in a position to resist as they have to live on the streets at the mercy of the police. This was glaringly visible in Mumbai during the Beer can serial murders. The police targeted street dwellers, who were picked up in hundreds every day. Nearly 1500 people were rounded up in two weeks on grounds of suspicion of being the serial murderer! Then there are laws like the Bombay Prevention of Beggary Act 1951i (BPBA) which gives wide ranging powers to the police to pick up nearly anyone found loitering on the streets. BPBA which is also extended to Delhi, has defined begging in article 2 as: a) Soliciting or receiving alms in a public place, whether or not under any pretence such as singing, dancing, fortune telling, performing or offering any article for sale; b) Entering on any private premises for the purpose of soliciting or receiving alms; c) Exposing or exhibiting, with the object of obtaining or extorting alms any sore, wound, injury, deformity or disease whether of a human being or animal; d) Having no visible means of subsistence and wandering about or remaining in a public place in such as condition or manner, as makes it likely that the person doing so exists by soliciting or receiving alms

The last paragraph broadens begging to include anyone having no visible means of subsistence and essentially means that you can be arrested for being poor. This makes begging a status offence because you are punished not for what you have done but for who you are
- Administration of beggary laws in India; Seminar paper presented at All India Criminology Conference, Madurai by Tarique Qureshi.

These false cases further reinforce the negative identity of the homeless as criminals. This identity reduces the credibility of the people living on the streets. Employers are wary of employing them in regular employment both because they do not have any stable place of residence and also because of the negative image. At best the street dwellers get occasional daily wage work. The available low paying and uncertain daily wage work is not sufficiently rewarding to enable them to save money for renting out a place of even the lowest quality in the slums. In addition, the lack of an Introducer and residence proof was sighted by street youth surveyed by Saathi as the two main reasons for their not being able to get regular jobs despite getting offers from employers. The Introducer acts as a substitute for individual identity document. Thus we see that a negative identity of the group leads to denial of opportunities to individuals. Lack of individual identity proofs leads to fabrication of cases against them and a negative identity. Thus the identities or rather the lack of it at the micro and macro level keeps this group tied up in the cycle of homelessness. Cycle of Substance Abuse The cycle of substance abuse is a direct by-product of the environmental conditions of living on the streets. Sleeping in the open or on pavements and dividers with the din of traffic is nearly an impossible task, and the added threat of police beatings and rounding up makes a sound sleep a near impossibility. A large majority of youth that Saathi has worked with have confessed that they started off with some form of substance use to be able to sleep. But then it became a constant need and slowly a dependency. It is also used to escape from their grim and depressing realities of every day existence. With only low paying daily wage work available substance use becomes an additional expense from their already limited income. This reduces the already meagre ability to save. Even detoxification programmes become ineffective as they have to come back ultimately on the streets where the same conditions and lack of support draw them back into the cycle of substance abuse. The operation of this cycle can be seen in the diagram below.

Homelessness Difficult environment Insufficient or No Savings Substance use for coping

Addiction Increased consumption of Income

The Savings Cycle Savings cycle is closely associated with the identity cycle and the lack of identification documents. Banks, because of the strict Know Your Customer (KYC) rules set by the Reserve Bank of India guidelines do not open savings accounts for people who have no proof of residence and identification. With the absence of other informal saving options the street population is not able to save and accumulate assets. Even though their ability to save is low, but homeless do save. This is evident from the remittances that youth in Saathis contact, send to their families mostly in the rural areas. With no hopes of getting a roof and option to save bigger amounts, street dwellers start remitting whatever small amounts they can to their native places at short intervals. Even when work is available regularly it cannot actually be saved. Whatever excess the homeless earn gets consumed or used in entertainment or on drinking and gambling. This has nothing to do with their character as is often pointed out but has an economic rational behind it. According to economic theory, consumption is high with high disposable income. In the absence of saving options the disposable income increases. It is better to spend ones earning on oneself even if that means drinking, smoking or gambling, which ironically are the only forms of entertainment and relaxation available to them. Also, because if the available money is not consumed the possibility of it being stolen or getting extorted by police is very high. Had the option of savings existed this extra amount which has to be spent would not have been spent. When options are available the street youth with whom Saathi has worked have demonstrated the ability to save substantial amounts. Today there are 30 youth who save regularly with Saathi. The deposits of individual youth in a month range from Rs. 500 to Rs 5000, occasionally they have even saved up to Rs. 10000 in a month! But generally the earnings are small. This is not only a result of being caught in street life but also

because of the low skill sets and education levels of majority of the street dwellers. This creates another self reinforcing cycle called the work cycle. The Work Cycle The general level of skill sets of the youth living on the streets is low, which is also a reason for their lesser paying jobs. In a survey of 93 youth in the age group of 16 to 25 years done by Saathi it was found that 52% of them were educated less than class 5; of this the large majority was illiterate (40% illiterate and 12% 5th standard or less). 42% were educated between 5th and 10th class. This at first sight appears to be quite a hopeless situation. But experience has shown otherwise. There is a scope for most of them to improve their skill sets and increase their earnings. Even with the current level of skills 31% of 93 youth surveyed by Saathi were earning between Rs. 3000 and 5000 per month! Another 17% was earning between 5000 and 7000. However, the point that needs to be remembered is that these are figures mostly extrapolated by youth according to their daily earnings and often during the busy season and not a steady regular income. The present work available to them is not good enough for them to move out of the homelessness cycle. In most cases the work available does not fulfill the aspirations of the street dwellers. In a survey by Saathi to find out the aspiration gap among street youth - the gap between what was desired and what one is doing it was found that aspirations of 56% of 100 youth surveyed was not fulfilled. They keep on shifting jobs in the hope of fulfilling their aspirations. This frequent shifting of jobs also gets stereotyped as laziness and weakness of character and gets linked to the Identity cycle. Going back to the issue of low level skills, youth who came in contact with Saathi and use its facilities have demonstrated that it is possible to upgrade their skills and move on to better paying jobs. 96 youth underwent different forms of training between February 2004 and September 2007 and moved on to better paying jobs. Skill improving trainings also need associated support structures to sustain and retain the youth. Important among them is some form of shelter and stipends. Shelter is needed to keep training materials, books or uniforms etc. and also to remain clean. Since training often requires the youth to skip their daily employment coupled with their lack of saving it would not be possible for them to sustain themselves during the training period without stipends. The work cycle can be seen below:

Low skills and education

Low paying irregular work

No opportunity for skill upgradation

Non-fulfilment of aspirations

Negative identity

Inability to pay fees

Constant shifting of jobs

No home

Low income and savings

As seen from above diagram of work cycle, on their own it is a near impossibility for individuals on the street to break this cycle. Since the individuals are trapped by macro level issues not of their own making. However, if supported with skill building and associated support structures it would be possible for a large number of the youth living on the streets to move out of this cycle as has been demonstrated by 183 youth who have rebuilt their lives with Saathi in the last three years. For me this reinstates the fact that even street youth are keen to learn, change and grow! Large majority of the youth living on the streets that came to Saathi were seeking better options of employment. The belief is that if they get better jobs they would be able to move out of street life and fulfil their aspirations too. However, as is apparent from the above explanation, breaking the cycle is nearly impossible for individuals without some form of external support and intervention. The vicious cycle ultimately breaks the spirit of the people and they increasingly get sucked into a life of pessimism and despair. They start feeling weak and become disempowered. They lose self-confidence. The ill treatment meted out to them by every quarter of society takes away the dignity from their lives. Hospitals and doctors refuse to treat them, police beat them up, illegally confine them and the rest of society generally shuns them. In effect some of the most basic rights and the fundamental right to life with dignity and liberty granted by the constitution are also denied to them. They are not treated as equal citizens Way out of this vicious cycle
Housing, Identity and Economic Alternatives

The question now is How to break this vicious cycle?

It is clear that there are three major forces or causes which are interacting to create the vicious cycle - the lack of housing, a negative identity and lack of access to greater economic alternatives including access to formal or informal banking institutions. These three issues need to be addressed for a solution to the issues of the homeless. For me, these three issues are actually macro issues and not a creation of the affected individuals. Till these issues are not addressed no appreciable dent can be made in improving the conditions of the people living on the streets. At the individuals level the following have been seen to work with Youth in Saathis contact. 1. Short term/ full time shelters 2. Skill up-gradation through supported skill up-gradation programmes. 3. Exploration of new work options, especially through corporate social responsibility. 4. Linking with savings options 5. Providing identity documents Housing Lack of housing options is at the core of the problems facing street population. Street populations are not in a position to afford housing with the work that is available to them. This especially is true of people without any support systems in the cities. Thus creation of shelters for the Homeless is an important support for this population. Saathis interventions in shelter alternatives (Saathi was the organization I worked with from 2005 to 2010 and coordinated its Youth initiative, Home Placement programmes that worked with street populations along with Source level intervention and training initiative. We had then designed interventions to address the above issues of homelessness.) Saathis experience with different forms of Shelters especially the GROUP HOMES has demonstrated that there can be successful feasible alternative housing options for the youth living on the streets. The shelter programme has a very strong built-in incentive structure encouraging and motivating boys to move on and out of the shelters. Some of the options experimented are: The Drop-in centre was started as a space for youth to come in to a safe space which provided them some basic sanitation facilities otherwise not available in the city. It acts as a psycho-social support centre with a counselor to help the boys by guiding and facilitating them in planning for their future. It is now the nerve centre of the youth initiative programme located at Kamathipura Municipal School in Mumbai central. The outreach contacts are invited to the Drop-in centre if they need any services related to health, hygiene, facilitation with respect to vocational training or application for a job. They could also come in for saving their money or rent out lockers. The non formal education class also provided is an opportunity to improve their reading - writing skills. Mid-way/ Emergency shelter

The drop-in shelter however is only open during the day, so the question now is what happens to boys who would need emergency shelter in case of medical and other emergencies and those who have started with regular work and need spaces to stay at night? Keeping this in mind, a short term shelter is provided to boys who need some initial support before they are able to save and move on to independent or better housing options. This is a common shelter in a slum colony of Khar east where 15 to 20 boys can stay together. The mid way shelter forms a crucial stepping stone in a persons life in moving out of street life. It is the first step in the re-socialisation process. It is a regulated space with the basic services provided and reintroduces boys to structured living together. But it is very different from shelters run for other groups as street children and destitute. Here the objective is not merely to provide a safe space but as a part of empowerment strategy. Therefore a strong positive incentive structure is built into the rules and regulations of the midway shelter. They are such that they would motivate a person to work harder and move out of it rather than stay on. This has been attempted through two means: 1) A strong participatory element in running and planning 2) Subsidizing the charges for the services provided including rent as incentives. Group Homes Group homes have been an experiment as an alternative housing arrangement for youth living on the streets. Group homes are spaces where four to six boys stay together. The space is rented out by Saathi but the entire maintenance and running of the homes is taken care of by the boys themselves. The rents charged are subsidized but close to actual costs per head so as to provide incentive to move on. The group homes have a strong element of participation of the boys in the actual decision making. For the smooth running of the homes a protocal has been developed by the boys themselves. In addition a mechanism to sort out conflicts and grievances in consultation with each other and Saathi facilitator has been put into place. The boys make a long term plan for themselves before they move in to the Group Homes stating the required duration of support that they feel would be necessary for them to become independent. The progress of the boys is monitored at regular intervals. However, it is only a temporary support structure and not a life long accommodation, providing a platform for the youth to build and strengthen their capabilities in a planned manner and finally move out of Group Homes and become independent. The group homes can be used successfully for: a) people migrating into the city in search of better opportunities but do not have the resources to immediately rent out a place and, b) for rehabilitation of children in conflict with law The shelter programme has three key elements built in to it: 1. Participatory processes 2. Cost and quality incentives 3. Geographical spread Economic Alternatives

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a) Improving employability - Skill up gradation through training Skill up-gradation can improve the employability of the youth living on the streets. This is possible even with the low educational status of a majority of the youth living on the streets. And for larger numbers of youth to access skill up-gradation, skill centers need to be set up. Simultaneously, more market oriented training needs to be explored and trainings developed. The issue with training programmes and providers: Courses have certain expectations such as full time attendance. Young people who are yearning for a living cannot take time out for training and often organizations cannot provide a stipend to tide them by until they are fully trained. Or street youth may have nowhere to wash to be clean for a work placement and have nowhere to store work equipment or uniforms. Homeless youth really require a full social support package alongside training provision such as accommodation and food. They also need support with developing life skills required for employment as they are coming from such chaotic backgrounds and must not be expected to fit straight away into a structured employment environment. b) Exploring More Job options Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a huge opportunity to expand choices of work available to the youth living on the streets. Efforts need be made to leverage this newly available avenue. However, this would need advocacy, awareness generation and sensitisation of the corporates towards this group. Catering work is one of the largest employers of youth living on the streets. Hospitality services and other service sector employments are being explored for more job opportunities. c) Savings options The Reserve Bank of India has now allowed commercial banks to utilize the NGOs to expand the reach of the banking services to as yet uncovered sections of society. Some banks have also expressed interest. The modalities are being worked out by the banks. Once the youth are linked to the formal banking system it will be a big step in breaking the cycle of homelessness. Saathi is exploring options to facilitate the process of linking the youth with the banking system. At the macro level, the solutions are quite simple a) creation of rented shelters for migrant and shelterless, b) linking with formal banking systems, c) Identity documents for homeless. However, it is their actual implementation process that makes it extremely complex as political considerations, vote-bank politics, and various lobbies come into play. The problems are actually due to a failure of housing policy for the poorest of the poor of the urban society - the homeless. The bottom-line of the argument emerging from this framework is that even the economically active sections of urban homeless require support in the form of creation of shelters to enable them to move out of the vicious cycle. The urban homeless are an urban social unit and need to be identified as such. Homeless individuals themselves need to be aware of their rights and mobilised as a group and empowered to take up their issues on their own.

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References 1. Ashray Adikar Abhiyaan studies www.actionaidindia.org/Shelters_in_Delhi.htm, 2000, 2002 2. Girls on the Run, Saathi, 2004 3. Living and dying on the streets: homeless women in our cities http://www.thebanyan.org _______________________________ **Shwetank Mishra is currently Team Leader and Founder secretary of Sahaj. He is also consultant with Governance technical Support Team of Bihar Prashashnik Sudhar Mission, Government of Bihar. He can be reached at shwetankatwork@gmail.com This work can be used for free but the work and author must be acknowledged appropriately at every usage.

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