Homelessness in Ukraine: Structural Causes and Moral Evaluation

Abstract

Homelessness is seen among the most visible forms of urban marginality in post-soviet countries. As changes in the labour and housing markets led to a growing number of the homeless in Ukrainian cities, social policy moved towards moral evaluation of the homeless individual as “deserving” or “undeserving” which is unlikely to resolve the problem of homelessness at a structural level. On the contrary, affordable housing and access to decent work as universal rights guaranteed to all should be among the priorities of state policy and non-governmental institutions alike.

Keywords:

• homelessness
• affordable housing
• reserve army of labour
• penal state
• Ukraine

Notes

1. According to the Social monitoring of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2010, almost a third of all respondents lived without sanitation or central heating (one in ten said their apartment was “very cold in winter”), a quarter had unstable supply of electricity, one in ten lived in overcrowded conditions (three or more persons per room) and the same number of people had leaking walls or ceiling.

2. Statistical data on housing conditions is taken from the Social Monitoring of the Institute of Sociology, Academy of Science of Ukraine and from the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua.

3. High housing expenses also mean a need to save on other costs (food, medicine, clothing, transport, education, cultural and social life), forced co-habitation without a possibility to escape family violence or other conflicts, and a high risk of homelessness in case of illness, job loss or unpredictable expenses. This has lead Russian sociologist Tikhonova (2003) to list inadequate housing as one of the key factors of social exclusion.

4. According to the data of the Moscow Department for criminal investigations, at the end of 1994, 115 owners of sold flats were declared “disappeared”. In 1993, there were 17 murders related to housing transactions, and in early 1994, there were already 50 such murders. Between January and June 1994, at least 500 persons ended up on the street because of housing transactions (Andrusz, Harloe, and Szelenyi 1996).

5. For instance, in Hungary, between 1989 and 1994, housing expenses rose by 50% and they continue to rise today (Polakov and Guillean 2001).

6. Published online at: http://gazeta.ua/index.php?id=137512 One should note that these construction workers are for the most part precarious day-labourers working in the shadow economy without work contracts or social guarantees.

7. Economico-political manuscripts of 1844.

8. http://www.homeless.net.ua/ua/researches.php

9. “Clean Thursday” is how Ukrainians call the day, when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples before being condemned to death. On this day, religious tradition encourages people to clean up their houses, wash themselves and all their clothes in order to prepare for Easter.

10. Published in a Ukrainian weekly magazine “ Ukrainski Tyzhden” in October 2008, No. 41(50).

11. Other examples of such “privatisation of public space” are parks and green areas. Many small squares in the city centre of Kyiv have been turned into summer terraces of restaurants or cafés and you can only sit there if you order something.

12. A more extreme example of urban segregation and exclusion of the poor is seen in “gated communities”. This a wide-spread (and widely criticised) phenomenon in countries like the USA (Low 2003) or South Africa whereas in Ukraine first gated communities are only beginning to appear in the last decade. In Kyiv such communities are presented as positive signs of city growth, prosperity and comfortable life. An advertisement of “Vozdvyzhenka” gated community proudly lists all the benefits of living “in the very heart of the city, but as if in a small peaceful XIXth century district, with private security, video surveillance, own kindergarten and elementary school, health and sports facilities …”.

13. A programme with the title “Transport police is conducting a prophylactic operation named ‘Bomzh’” on 28 January 2006, online access at: http://5tv.com.ua/newsline/184/0/20300/.