HOMELESS PERSONS

Homeless persons became an important agenda in Turkey in last decade. We started to see mainly men and rarely women living in the parks or living on quiet and secluded parts of the streets and under the bridges. They walk around the cafes, pubs and bars with any purpose. Male persons’ hair and beard are long and unkempt and female persons’ clothes were dirty and ragged. They sleep or lay down on the newspapers or cardboards both in day time and in the evenings. In the beginning years they seem as if they were alcoholic or mentally retarded or psychiatrically
ill but later picture were changed due to urbanization, migration, terror, earthquake (17 August, 1999), unemployment, economic crisis. The
numbers of the homeless persons are increasing in recent years due to the related factors mentioned before. And old myth is not valid in Turkey now: homeless = unhealthy or alcoholic.

It is not surprising to see well educated persons on the streets now. We can read some stories about the homeless persons on the newspapers who lost their jobs, who experience familial problems, who can not pay their rentals. Homelessness is not considered as a social problem by the policy makers, so that there is not any social work policy related to that group.  However, in last two years weather conditions in
winter is very hard in Turkey. Due to this experience,some health and personal hygiene services were given
in bigger cities (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Samsun) by the government. Approximately 1000 homeless persons benefit from these services. The main purposes of these services are to protect them from freezing. When the weather conditions normalized, this program
finishes and homeless go back to their environments: on streets, in destroyed buildings, and under the bridges.

There is not any policies on governmental level and any activities on non-governmental organizations level toward the homeless persons in Turkey. We, as social worker, are making many attempts to percieve this situation as a social problem. We contact with media leaders to give information to them. We are preparing a working plan to help social worker in relation to give services to this kind of clients.