Daily Times

State is like a mother towards its citizens. Mother keeps children away from all problems. It is quite heart-rending to know that thousands of people live in this hard winter on roads. Welfare states take care of people’s shelter and housing needs. Unfortunately, walking on the footpaths of Anarkali or Bhaati Gate and passing by the glorious Lahore fort, you will see a number of young and old men lying on roadsides wearing rags and, in most of the cases, smoking drugs. They are the ones who have no home, no families, no work and no proper food. These footpaths, streets and roads are their homes while garbage centres are their dining rooms. Most of them are drug addicts.

The issue is a chronic one, and the number of homeless has grown owing to the floods, which come as a yearly feature and each time catch the state ill-prepared to cope with the human tragedy.

Are they not human beings like us? Yes, they are. If they are, why don’t they have any right to live a normal life? Lahore is the heart of Pakistan. Due to the attraction of city life and job opportunities, people migrate to this city from the rural areas. It has created a massive bulk of population in Lahore. Majority of the people belongs to lower socio-economic classes and cannot afford the rents. These people use open public spaces to sleep at night. These public places may be parks, shrines, footpaths, market fronts etc. As there is no restriction from police and city district government on this homeless population, they can use these public places without any fear.

Societal factors also lead to make people go homeless, such as labelling of disabled persons who are forced to leave their houses under depression. Same goes with the unemployed, smokers, mentally ill, etc. Abuse and family background are the largest cause of youth homelessness. People fall victims to sexual abuse and choose to leave their houses and live on the roads. Families neglect the drug addicts forcing that person to choose leaving their houses.

In Pakistan, due to poor governance and proper mechanism to deal with the issue of homelessness, there are no emergency shelters in urban areas. Financial assistance to unemployed or homeless labour class can play a significant role in minimising this issue. In private sector, again, there are few organisations working on this issue. There is a lack of trained professional staff which can provide assistance to these homeless people. Through formal social control system, police and other law enforcing agencies can identify criminals and drug addicts from this population. Through this strategy the incidents of theft and other criminal activities can be controlled.

To sum up, Pakistan has a very high number of homeless people, who, by the virtue of the constitution of the Islamic Republic, remain yet another unfulfilled responsibility of the state.