The issue of national security and the law of homeless people

In Romania, street children are unnamed. No rights. I live in another world, the laws, the jungle. An alarming situation, in which our legionnaires in power did not decade in 26 years to find a law for them. My story, that of the street kid can open the eyes of those who should see with the soul. Please find the inspiration in the following lines, lower a few seconds in their hearts and you will realize how hard you live in a world where you, a common citizen, are deprived of rights. The Right to Live. The right to exist. And, here we are, our beautiful country, seen all over, with the stars of the European countries, homeless people sleep in the true sense of the word ... under the starry sky.

It is very easy to judge about a topic you do not know, or you have not experienced that experience. Like the institutionalized child. Why beg to beg, to lie, to become inadequate in school, to accept entourage made up of troubled individuals. Which only makes one of them a source of rescue, to develop another identity about the world, about itself. Such as self-abandonment or cancellation of one's own identity. At that moment, two worlds of you are merging, the identity you have received at birth and the world you see ... otherwise, with other eyes. Whatever it is, good, bad, flawed by the evils of society, the miracle that happens is those eyes that see the world ... the first boundary between human, soul and first contact with Heaven.

I intended to put the experiences discovered on the streets, the trains stationed in the stations, the bad smells nearby. From Romania, the country seen from the "inside" - struck by a steel toothed whip directly in front. That aggressive image you hit - street children, homeless people, drug-starving, hunger, beating, frozen bones, frozen souls to the ears. And his eyes crooked. Except that there is that "gift" we do not want to see and invent the outcome that we do not want to see beyond their souls, their pains. We are, like a fantasy world, masks made to smile at order. They exist, I am. Children, young, old. Their resemblance, our likeness makes the difference ... they cry in their own way, they suffer in their own way ... And, yes, I am asking a question. How do they smile, or why would they do it?

I was a problem of those who grew me up. There, in the orphanages of Romania. When they were judging crooked when they were hitting, and for any injustice or lesson of life that I would have never found but the street people, they saw in me a disease, a weird, a permanent thorn that was Their sole, a solid body in the throat.

        I was born in a hospital in Bacău. Two months after the birth, the local authorities in Pînceşti village of Petreşti village pulled me from my mother's arms and I was admitted to a nursery. At 3 years, the authorities decide to be moved to Preschool Children's Home in Comanesti, where I stayed for 5 years. At 8, my soul is placed worse than in football. At that time, the authorities considered my place to be the Children's School of Comanesti (I lived here until my 14th birthday). At the age of 14, at my request, I am placed in a nursing home, where I lived for 2 years. Because of the physical abuse that I have been going through over the two years one night, I make the decision to run home and denounce those who have to protect me from child protection. At the age of 16, entering the high school in Bacau, the authorities decide, after the denunciation, to be placed at the Profamilia Residential Center in Bacău (here I stayed until the age of 26).

And yet, why all this? My parents were poor, they both suffered from physical and mental disabilities. I was a "part" of that family. Yes, you read well! Of the 15 members, I, the 13th son, and the last of them. All the brothers were victims of abandonment. Rowing along, they also felt their sharp skin on their skin - at the No Soul House. Orphanage. Up to 10 years old I did not know I had a family, parents, and another 12 brothers. You asked yourself what it is like to say mother and father, grandfather, aunt to strangers, when I was 10 years old when I found out that in a small village near Bacau, in a dilapidated house, All their sins.

One day, from the summer of '97, we built a stranded stroller from four woods and three bearings. Find through the courtyard through the center. After a few laps, a shrill, more rusty voice is heard than the metal bodies in the trolley. She was educator Celina. He's calling me from a distance. I swear if I needed a megaphone to hear that croak cry ... I pull my heart in my chest with my toy on the bearer and head for the fireplace. I'm going to go into the building, climb the stairs at a speed. In that stupid rush, the masterpiece breaks down, ranks one by one, starting from the bearing to the plank. You realize that that loud noise has turned into a bang, like the fall of Berlin following the bombing by the Russians. The answer came on the spot. Feedback by anarchist, "Visein, now in the office". I avoided going straight away. I took my stroller in the room with a missing bearing. I hid it under the bed and did not ride my big boys, and I headed for the office. I did not know what was waiting for me. The doors close with the key. A wooden broom queen is taken from the bathroom and proven to me. Drapes are drawn and it is dark; She hits thirsting. I can not indulge myself, I'm crying for pain, I can not move for pain. She continues to give. I did not know where to hide myself. There was a table at the far end of the chancellery. I dragged myself up there and hid myself under it. It was not enough. He continued to strike me with the mature tail until he got tired. It's over! I went to the room. I was sitting on the second floor in the room with five other colleagues. One of my colleagues recommends us to run. I did not think and I left. I jumped the balcony from the first floor, I shook my leg, but I did my best not to make a sound. Shifting, I went to the train station in Comăneşti. At the station I stuck to a cold wall in the waiting room to relieve my pain. When I touched my back against the wall, I felt a more painful pain. I was hungry, lame and full of tears. I was hanging around. Here I was going to start a new life on the streets.

In the early days it was difficult. I was afraid. I was hungry. I wandered through wagons and begged for money. At night, I was crying. In the morning, we took it all over: I was begging, I was hungry, I was working. I remember that at one point my mind had rooted the idea that my whole life would be a beggar. Every morning, when I opened my eyes, I realized again and again that I was not in my bed. I was cold. I missed my bed.

        "Through street children / young people we understand: those who stay permanently or only at a certain time of the day on the street (in the broad sense of the term, including improvised shelters, sewers, cars or abandoned buildings, etc.), acquiring Alone or in groups, livelihoods through legal or illegal activities. These people do not benefit from an optimal level of protection from parents (if they live / are in contact with them) or any law-abiding institution "[1].



        The street kid - we all know him and we all ignore him. Nobody asks you anything. Nobody, except the police, who occasionally aggresses you. Most of the time, the street child is found guilty of burglary or other criminal actions. That's what happened to me a few times, if something happened in the area, I was found guilty. That's what the policemen scared me, their purpose being to get me out of the train station where I was sleeping. Every night. Not to be found by the authorities. For fear of going back to the beatings in the center.

"We are" collapsing "each wagon, singing the song of abandoned children:" Mothers in the world are wondering how you can ... ". We enjoy every moment of every child we were ... That night, a "colleague" had been killed by someone who was trying to rape her. I was hiding my dangers in the most hidden places. There were nights in which I was running and watching. I spent those nights in about 17 train stations - Comanesti, Palinca, Darmanesti, Onesti, Adjud, Salina, Tg. Ocna, Focsani, Marasesti, Ciresoaia, Roman, Iasi, Pascani, Bacau, North Railway Station, Basarab, Buzau.

I remember that troubled night, perhaps the worst. I fell asleep in the Salina train station, Bacau County, where I was beaten, stripped, molested. I was lucky to hit my luck when I gave a colleague from the center who saved me from the monster's hands and proposed to go to a monastery. I stayed there for two months. Here, along with priests, monks, I found for a couple of months a little bit of happiness. They dressed me up, cared for me, fed me, then sent me to the orphanage.
For someone to be considered homeless, it is not necessarily to live on the street. Although these people are most often associated with those sleeping on the street in the open, the broad meaning of the term also includes people who do not have any rights at the place where they live or live in inappropriate conditions, Considering a broader category, including: people who do not have a stable residence, live in shelters or institutions, are at risk of being evacuated, living in improper, unsafe conditions, caravans, camp sites, or housing improvised.

At present, there is no single definition of work that is formally valid throughout the European Union, with each Member State defining both the quality of homelessness and homelessness as a social phenomenon in a different way. In Romania, the legal definition of a "homeless person" is given by law 292/2011 on the National Social Assistance System, namely: "homeless people are a social category consisting of single persons or families who, for single or cumulative reasons , Social, medical, financial, economic, legal or force majeure, live in the street, live temporarily in friends or acquaintances, are unable to sustain a rental accommodation or are at risk of escape Or are in institutions or prisons, from where they are to be released, respectively released within 2 months, and do not have their domicile or residence "

It is important to distinguish between individual and personal experience of being homeless, of "homelessness" as a wider social problem, which refers to the company's failure to provide, inter alia, affordable housing, income Decent and a lack of adequate social support, according to David Hulchanski, professor of community development at the University of Toronto's Department of Social Assistance.

The "homelessness" phenomenon can be narrowly defined to include only people without a roof, or can be broadly defined. Feantsa supports a broad definition, which includes, besides people without a roof, people living in insecure or inadequate conditions. Homelessness as a social issue plays a central role in exacerbating social exclusion factors that increase poverty, limits personal opportunities and creates artificial barriers to participation in social life.

The ETHOS typology, developed by FEANTSA, attempts to cover all situations involving homelessness in Europe:

• no roof (no shelter, sleeping on the street);

• homeless (with a sleeping place, temporarily in institutions or shelters);

• Unsafe housing (under threat of exclusion, eviction, domestic violence);

• inadequate housing (caravans, unfit homes, illegal camping sites, overcrowding).

ETHOS typology, the European typology of homelessness and the denial of the right to housing.

According to an article published in September 2010 by David Hulchanski in the Canadian daily "The Toronto Star," a search on the historical basis of the New York Times, the base covering the period 1851 - 2005, reveals that the word "homelessness" 4,755 articles, of which 4.148 (ie 87%) were published between 1985 and 2005.

Before the 1980s, using the word "homelessness" (and not "homeless") to designate a social problem is extremely rare. David Hulchanski then goes on to show how, before the 1980s, the term "homeless", which in the present sense means a homeless person, was also used in a particular sense. In "The Old Homeless and the New Homeless in a Historical Perspective," Peter H. Rossi explains how "old homeless" were mostly elderly men living in cheap hotels. The "new homeless", after the 1980s, are much younger, often women and children, more exposed to social exclusion, and at the same time living in more fierce poverty. Similarities between new and old homeless are the incidence of mental illness and substance abuse - drugs.

David Hulchanski also explains how the term "old homeless" generally refers to older, lonely men who, although having a roof, although not always in optimum conditions, did not have a "home" seen as a family. So they had a house, but they did not have "home". Thus, according to David Hulchanski, at the time, Canada, although it had so-called "homeless" individuals, did not know the phenomenon of "homelessness," the wider social issue spread in contemporary society. The word comes into widespread use in developed countries in the mid-1980s.

In Romanian, today, we do not have yet another word to designate this reality, instead using the term "homeless" both to refer to "homeless" and "homelessness," which can create confusion . It may be worth noting that also in Romanian, at least until 2013, the word "homophobia" - homophobia, officially does not yet exist, not yet approved by the Romanian Academy and recorded in a dictionary. Are we living in a utopian version of social realities, in which we do not need these words, because we do not need to designate these realities, or do the Romanian society simply choose to ignore them?

The phenomenon of homelessness is a complex issue. There is no single cause and there is no single solution. Individuals are homeless because of a complex fabrication of both personal factors and structural factors.

Individual faces refer to the personal circumstances that led to the loss of the home, and may include: traumatic events, mental health problems, addictions of any kind, disabilities, domestic violence, abuse, over-indebtedness, physical and / or sexual abuse, institutionalization.

Structural factors are represented by economic and social issues that affect the opportunities that individuals in a particular society have. They may include lack of adequate income or access to affordable housing, access to health services or discrimination. The phenomenon of homelessness and poverty are in close correlation

The right to housing in Romania is not guaranteed by the Constitution. Below we have inserted a map of the Member States of the European Union guaranteeing the right to housing in the Constitution: [2]

Having no fixed address is a starting point for social exclusion of homeless people. Because they do not have a fixed address, many homeless people do not have an ID card. Because they do not have an identity card, they are excluded from public and political life, unable to vote, for example. Thus they become non-people, without papers, without rights. Thus, they are incapable of finding a job. Because they do not work, they do not have medical insurance. Life in the street is a difficult one, and their health, both physical and mental, is becoming more and more precarious. Many of them turn to alcohol as a refuge from the hostile and threatening environment they live in. Drug abuse or harmful car behavior are also common. A homeless person's life is insecure. They may be victims of street aggression, robbery and / or sexual violence. They are more exposed than the general public to developing mental disorders such as depression or anxiety. The food problem is always on the table. They are turning to begging, prostitution or exploitation of minors as the ultimate survival strategies. As a direct consequence of bad diet, many suffer from respiratory problems, cardiovascular disease, digestive diseases, skin diseases, tuberculosis. They do not have access to basic medical care, social protection services or educational programs. The situation dramatically worsens their chances of ever re-entering.

Laws that restrict the public space in which homeless people are allowed to live or prohibit begging incriminate homeless people without offering any alternative or solution.

There are approximately 3,000,000 homeless people in Europe, according to Red de Apoyo at Integración Sociolaboral (RAIS) 2010. At the same time, Europe has over 11,000,000 free properties, of which the most, 3,400,000 only in Spain. The British daily The Guardian [3] draws attention to this fact in an article published in February 2014. FEANTSA's Freek Spinnewijn has encouraged governments to do their utmost to restore these properties to the market.

In Romania, conservative estimates of the number of people without a roof (and not homeless in the broad sense of the term) place them at around 15,000, out of which 5,000 in Bucharest. This estimate, however, covers only the first category of ETHOS typology of FEANTSA.

Conclusion

Homelessness is a complex issue, it does not have a single cause, or a single solution. The lack of a roof is the most obvious manifestation, but in the back there is a combination of factors that exacerbates the social exclusion that a person in this situation is subject to. Especially when it comes to the subjective living of the homeless, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for someone who has not gone through this experience to be able to report in the same terms to her.

As a society, we are obliged to truly meet the needs of homeless people and not only through a financial and / or material support mechanism, but also showing them that, for someone, they matter. We must put an end to ignorance. Anyone can be, at some point, in the same situation.

References:

http://www.housingrightswatch.org/
http://casaioana.org/about-family-homelessness/#how-we-can-end-family-homelessness
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2010/09/18/the_invention_of_homelessness.html
http://feantsa.org/spip.php?article120&lang=en
http://www.thelocal.es/20140225/spain-worst-in-europe-for-empty-properties
http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessness-statistics
http://www.homelesshub.ca/about-homelessness/homelessness-101
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2221566
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/laws-targeting-homelessness-have-increased-dramatically-across-country
http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-uk-is-outlawing-homelessness/199886/