Friday, February 11, 2005

Here is some great news to share with you and another example of what a very small number of people can do to make needed change by bringing to light a problem that needs to be addressed. The lesson learned here is if you bring something to the public eye, as Edik and Onnik did, those who are in the job of dealing with such issues can no long igonore it as they have been. Bravo Edik, Onnik and all the people who worked to bring to public attention this issue.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
10 February 2005


Government To Open First Shelter For Armenia’s Homeless

By Atom Markarian and Emil Danielyan

The government announced on Thursday plans to open and finance Armenia’s first-ever shelter for a growing number of homeless people that were virtually non-existent in the past.

“We will try to find a building for such an institution and hire personnel that will provide social, psychological and other assistance to this kind of people,” Labor and Social Affairs Minister Aghvan Vartanian told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

“We will be able to place them there, to give them some assistance,” he said. “To put it more simply, we will wash, dress and treat them.”

Vartanian said the shelters will house not only individuals that have nowhere to live but also victims of domestic violence. He did not elaborate on time frames and financial details of the scheme, saying only that it stems from a draft law on social support which the government will submit to parliament this month.

Homelessness is a relatively new but increasingly visible phenomenon in Armenia and Yerevan in particular. Seeing people scavenging for food or sleeping on the street in the city center was hardly possible just a few years. The Armenian government, including Vartanian’s ministry, as well as international relief organizations present in Armenia have not dealt with the problem until now.

So far it has been largely highlighted by occasional media reports. The most recent and in-depth of them came from Edik Baghdasarian, a prominent investigative journalist who edits the Hetq.am online publication. Baghdasarian and Hetq photojournalist Onnik Krikorian spent several weeks interviewing the homeless and even helping some of them bathe and receive medical treatment.

Baghdasarian also found that at least 30 homeless people have died on the streets of Yerevan this winter, the coldest in years.

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