Support the Homeless : Habitat for Humanity on World Habitat Day (5th Oct 2009) & URBAN Homeless Condition Report In India:blog

The United Nations has designated the first Monday each October as World Habitat Day.

This year on Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C. and around the world, please join Habitat for Humanity in support of this global observance as we come together and declare that the lack of decent, affordable housing is unacceptable.

Let's stand up on World Habitat Day and let it be known that affordable, adequate housing should be a priority everywhere—in our communities, in our towns, in our country, in our world.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

The theme for World Habitat Day 2009 is "Planning our Urban Future"

Supporting organizations for 2009 World Habitat Day include:

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Habitat for Humanity

Rockefeller Foundation

Woodrow Wilson Centre

Global Housing Foundation

CHF International

American Planners Association

International Housing Coalition

the Urban Institute

USAID, Cities Alliance

the World Bank

the US Department of Agriculture

the Cooperative Housing Foundation

the National Law Centre

the Mortgage Bankers Association

Donate: your mere donation can give shelter:

Did you know that your gift does much more than help families escape from unsafe, unhealthy living conditions?

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

You’re helping families to break the cycle of poverty and build long-term financial security. Habitat’s affordable, no-profit house payments free up money for food, child care, medicine and other necessities. And research has shown that decent housing improves health, increases children’s educational achievement and strengthens community ties.

Thanks to your support, Habitat has transformed the lives of more than 1 million people around the world! Let’s help even more!http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Click here to donate now

Some Facts of URBAN Homeless Condition In India:

As per 2001 census report the slum population of India in cities and towns with a population of 50,000 and above was 42.6 million, which is 22.6 per cent of the urban population of the states/ Union Territories reporting slums. This could also roughly be the size of Spain or Columbia.

As per the 2001 census, the total urban homeless population is 7, 78,599 people. Delhi had 3.1 percent of the national level, and Bihar and Tamil Nadu had 1.6 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

In Delhi, for over a 100,000 homeless people, the government runs 14 night shelters with a maximum capacity of 2,937 people, which is only 3 percent of the homeless people in the city. Outside in the walled city of Delhi, private contractors called thijawalahs rent out quilts (winter) and plastic sheets (monsoon) for five rupees a night. Iron cots are rented for 15 rupees a night.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

In a study of homeless populations, homeless men, women and children in four cities reported that they were beaten by the police at night and driven away from their make-shift homes/shelters.

There are 375 children below 5 years of age forming less than one per cent of total shelterless in the capital. The aged population (60 year and above) form almost 3 per cent of total shelterless in the capital.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Homeless in Mumbai, India's metropole

Photo: by VeganMoonray

The shelterless in Delhi earns between Rs. 70 and Rs. 100 per day on average.

More than 36 per cent of men and more than 46 per cent of women still use open fields for defecation.

The estimated number of shelterless person by 2016 is 141,091 according to IHD survey and 34,166 according to calculated Census Growth Rate of shelterless person. http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Homeless family in Bombay:

Photo: by larserlandsson

A few Living Examples:

After 17 years of sleeping on the streets of Delhi, Saroja Devi slept in the first shelter for homeless women in Delhi and said that what she valued most in the months she stayed at the shelter was that for the first time she had the assurance of an uninterrupted night’s sleep. http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

‘I live on a pavement in the old Delhi area. And know how people survive on pavements. If one meal is available, then another time one has to sleep without food. No one sleeps on an empty stomach willingly and happily. But what can one do? When we go to find some work, we are asked a series of questions like: “From where have you come? What do you do? Do you thieve? Who can stand guarantee for you?” How can you get work like this? Now tell me, what will one do to fill one’s stomach?’ - Seventeen-year-old Hashim sleeps among the multitudes of homeless people in the open ground near Jama Masjid, in the medieval walled city of Delhi.

Sixty-five year old Budhan Bai spends eight months a year begging and sleeping in the courtyard of Kalkaji Mandir in Delhi to support her ailing husband in their village in Uttar Pradesh.

Old women [Buddham Bai] at Kalkaji Mandir in delhi india: http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

I could smell Buddham Bai before I could see her. She was covered with layers of clothes once white, laced with the acrid odour of incontinence, of old age. Pink nail polish flashing against the dark, wrinkled hands, her grizzled hair was put in a careless bun. Her child-like smile, at the age of 65, was the only thing that didn't look weathered by life's grueling tests. [read more]

-Arpan Tulsyan