Homeless Everywhere


“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of herself/himself and of her/his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond her/his control.”
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights

There are few things we find common among people in the East and people in the West, or people in the South and people in the North. There are rich and there are poor.

The rich in every country are having the same luxury lifestyle. They have everything including expensive houses.

Houses in five continents:America, Asia,Africa, Australia, Europe

It is nice to have nice beautiful houses. I wish I had one. I wish everyone had one. But I would like to know whether Mukesh Ambani from his 1.8 billion dollar tower home with 27 floors, nine elevators and three helipads can see Mumbai slums where almost half of the city’s 20.5 million population live.

People are homeless both in developed and developing countries. More than 100 million people are homeless worldwide and over 1.2 billion lack adequate housing. 3 million people are homeless in European Union and 18 million live in inadequate housing. 100,000 people sleep on the streets of Australia everyday. 44% of homeless people in Australia are female, 12% of homeless people in Australia are children under the age of 12. Women and Children are the fastest growing group of those who are homeless in Canada.In Brazil, there is a deficit of 6.6 Million housing units, equaling 20 million homeless people, who live in favela (shanty town), shared clandestine rooms, hovels or under bridges and viaducts, or are squatters. 1 million people are homeless in France. 78 million people are homeless in India despite the country growing in global economic stature. India is home to 63% of all slum dwellers in South Asia. 25,296 people are homeless in Japan.In Mexico City an estimated 40% of people live in informal housing.More than 70,000 people live in shack settlements in Namibia. 30,000 people are homeless in the Netherlands. By 2015, there will be an estimated homeless population of 24.4 million people in Nigeria.Around 24,145 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the Occupied Territories since 1967. 40% of the population,32.8million, in Philippines, live in slums. 5 million people are homeless in Russia. Around 17,800 people are homeless in Sweden. Homeless figures in the United States range from 600,000 to 2.5 million.

There are different contributing causes for homelessness. 1. Family breakdown 2. Armed conflict 3. Poverty 4. Natural and man-made disasters 5. Famine 6. Physical and sexual abuse. 7. Exploitation by adults 8. Dislocation through migration 9.Urbanization and overcrowding 10. Acculturation 11. HIV/AIDS 12. Drug and Alcohol related problems 13. Unemployment 14. Low wages 15. Mental disorder 16. Physical Disabilities 18. Domestic violence 19. Lack of affordable housing 20. Social exclusion etc.

Homeless people in five continents. America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe

The world has enough money to solve the problems of homelessness but to my surprise I see that the number of homeless people worldwide is increasing.

I often think of a totally different kind of homelessness. They are not literally homeless but they feel homeless. Many women who live in a nice big house know very well that the house belongs to someone else. They are scared to be ‘homeless’, so they compromise with their abusive husbands to get a space in the house, but unfortunately that doesn’t stop them from having a feeling of homelessness. It is a very hopeless and helpless feeling.

I am homeless too. I do not sleep on the street but I feel homeless. I was thrown out of my home 18 years ago. My husband did not do it because I did not have a husband. It was the government. The government literally drag me out of my home and locked the door forever. The religious fanatics demanded for my execution by hanging, instead of supporting me and my freedom of expression, the government supported the religious fanatics for their own narrow political interests. I have been forced to live in the places I do not like to live. Not only me, hundreds of thousands of people are forced to live in exile. Many of them feel homeless for the rest of their lives.