Editor’s Note: This article is a part of the “Journalism of Tolerance” project by the Kyiv Post and its affiliated non-profit organization, the Media Development Foundation. The project covers challenges faced by sexual, ethnic and other minorities in Ukraine, as well as people with physical disabilities and those living in poverty. This project is made possible by the support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development and Internews. Content is independent of the donors.
Liubov Bondarenko, 64, has been homeless for six months, through no fault of her own: she lost her home to a fire.
Her wooden house in Kyiv Oblast burned down in 2015. Shortly before, her husband died. The woman had no money and no relatives or friends who could help rebuild the house.
After Bondarenko failed to find a job, someone recommended that she contact the Ukrainian Charity Fund Social Partnership, which helps people in need and the homeless.
She now works as a tailor in the fund’s shelter for homeless people in Kyiv. The center provides her with a bed in its dormitory.
Lyubov Bondarenko sits at her sewing machine at her studio in Ukrainian Charity Fund Social Partnership in Kyiv on April 6. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
The center helps thousands people in need, but it only has the capacity to offer beds to some 30 people, while others can only visit the center to obtain aid.
In the center, the homeless are provided with simple meals, can wash their clothes and get new ones, have a medical checkup, or just rest and watch TV. Every day, the center’s employees make 2,500 lunches for people in need. They are served in the center and also delivered to food points around Kyiv.
Each of the shelter’s visitors has a unique story. Some were kicked out of their homes by their families, others are seniors who lost their apartments to fraudsters. They also include youngsters who didn’t want to stay in the parents’ homes, former convicts who have struggled to start a new life, and internally displaced people from Ukraine’s east who fled the war with little or no money.
In fact, no one knows exactly how many homeless people there are in Ukraine.
The government only counts homeless people who apply for help at state social aid centers.
In 2015, such centers helped 25,800 people. But experts say the real number of people living on the streets could be up to 200,000 — based on the international experience and statistics.
Two-year deadline to return
Bondarenko is one of those who hasn’t received the official status of a homeless person, but who desperately wants a home. She plans to sell the land plot on which her destroyed house was built, and buy a small place for herself.
“I’m used to having a home,” Bondarenko says. “I can’t live just anywhere.”
According to Yuliya Babiy, the press secretary of the Social Partnership Fund, a charity organization, most people who become homeless at first tend to be in denial about their new status.
However, if they don’t find a new home for two years, it is then almost impossible for them to return to home-owning society.
“Their perception of the situation changes, they integrate into their small world, the world of the homeless,” Babiy says.
That’s what happened to Volodymyr Kozhevnikov. The 75-year-old has got used to being homeless, and has been “wandering around for years.” He says he can’t remember for how long.
Kozhevnikov says he served in the Soviet army, and then spent some time in prison.
“For nothing,” he says, refusing to go into detail.
Volodymyr Kozhevnikov sits in the hall of Ukrainian Charity Fund Social Partnership in Kyiv on April 6. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
By the time Kozhevnikov was released, his siblings were “scattered across the world,” and he had nowhere to go. Since then, he has moved from place to place, sleeping mostly in railway stations. He comes to the Kyiv aid center for food.
Another visitor, Mykola Vidrazhko, 64, is also a former convict. He says that his sister sold his parents’ apartment while he was in jail. When he was released, he was homeless.
Like Bondarenko, Vidrazhko lives in the dormitory of the Social Partnership Fund, and works as the center’s shoemaker.
He lost his passport, and is going through the bureaucratic procedures to renew it. Once it’s ready, Vidrazhko says he will look for a job, and he thinks that with his skills, he could make good money.
Invisible to the state
Babiy, the spokeswoman for the Social Partnership Fund, says many people would not become homeless had they received some assistance from the government at critical times in their lives — when they are released from prison or start an adult life after living an orphanage.
Many become homeless because they don’t know where to find a job or how to motivate themselves, Babiy says. She believes that the government should offer free advice for such people.
While the state doesn’t offer much help to homeless people, the charity organizations that try to step in to help find it hard to fundraise for the homeless. People simply aren’t very sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, according to Babiy.
Mykola Vidrazhko holds a boot in his shoe repair cabin in Ukrainian Charity Fund Social Partnership in Kyiv on April 6. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
This lack of sympathy is also the reason why it’s difficult for the homeless to find their way back to a normal life – society rejects them, often seeing their problems as being their own fault.
Hardly anyone wants to sit next to a homeless person in the park or on public transport. The homeless are often kicked out of the underpasses and subway entrances where they sleep.
And the situation is about to get even worse.
Ivan Kovalyshyn, the head of the non-government organization Narodna Dopomoga, which helps homeless people, says that starting from April 4 social centers won’t be able to register homeless people anymore because of new legislation.
Earlier, a homeless person could apply for a state registration (known informally as a “propiska”) at such centers. Once registered, homeless people could receive social payments. And registration is often required for them to apply for jobs.
But a new law, adopted last year, stipulates that social centers can apply for state registration for a person only if it provides the person with a place to live.
According to Kovalyshyn, government’s policy towards homeless is simply ineffective.
“The state does not really see them,” he says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
