Imagine living on a street corner with nothing but a torn blanket and surviving on whatever food you can find, now imagine living in this condition during a deadly pandemic where the entire world is brought to its knees, your cities your states are being shut down, and everyone is locked in their homes and are not allowed to get out. What will you do, if you have no place to take shelter if you have no way to ensure that you will get at least one meal to keep you going if you don’t know whether you will be safe from this deadly disease and survive this godforsaken pandemic. That’s exactly what the homeless population of India and throughout the world was facing when the countries were being shut down to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the 2011 census, the number of homeless people in India was around 1.77 million, now keep in mind this number is almost 10 years old, and presently many independent civil society organizations put this number to be well over 3 million. Homelessness has always been a problem in India and the phrase, ”too many people, too little space” has always troubled the Indian society. Before the pandemic, we could see these homeless people wandering through streets trying to gather whatever helpful thing they can to get by and to survive. And now fast forward to mid-March when a nationwide lockdown is ordered and millions of Indians are forced to stay inside their homes, and these homeless people have nowhere to go.
Though several private and public shelter homes came to the rescue, their efforts were far from adequate to accommodate and assist this large chunk of the Indian population. People who did manage to find a shelter home faced different sets of problems. Lack of proper sanitation, food supply, running water, and overcrowding put their lives in even more danger to this contagious disease. With no money and no documentation to help them access the relief measures related to livelihood, these homeless people were more helpless than ever before and they became more susceptible to the immediate impact and aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.
But the problem faced by the homeless community doesn’t stay with them rather it directly impacts the country’s effort to combat the virus itself. Here are some ways in which it can happen-
1. Social isolation and quarantine are the cornerstones of the global effort to combat this deadly disease. But what options does a homeless family of 10 have? There is no doubt that physical proximity spreads the contagion. And when they have no roof over their heads mentioning such measure is nothing but fanciful. The lack of proper directive regarding this issue has made it even harder to contain the virus in the poorest section of society.
2. Lack of hygienic food and water leads to a whole host of medical disorders such as malnutrition which makes them more prone to catching this virus. In addition to this, poor housing and living conditions, lack of public hygiene, inadequate waste disposal, weather extremes, contamination, and increased prevalence of infections, with overall poorer quality of physical and mental health also creates a grave hindrance in efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 among homeless.
3. Stigma and marginalization have also been widespread, where the homeless have been blamed for the spread of infection in various parts. There have been instances of ‘hosing’ the homeless laborers in an attempt to ‘disinfect’ them which goes against ethics of human dignity.
4. For illiterate and poorly educated homeless people it is very hard to gather the knowledge regarding testing and overall information about anything much less Covid-19. They are more concerned about dying of hunger than a Covid-19 infection. In these circumstances, it becomes very hard to educate them regarding this pandemic and what they need to do to stay safe. This all results in a lack of testing, early detection, proper medical care, and overall chaos in the community.
And to prevent the spread of the virus and keep the homeless community safe a very strategic and organized plan of action needs to be made by the officials. Providing them with safe and hygienic living conditions, food and water will go a long way in ensuring their safety.
The homeless community has been overlooked and neglected by mainstream society for far too long. This Covid-19 pandemic has revealed very blatant and inhumane ways in which a community of poor and under-educated people who can’t even afford a roof over their heads, suffer due to a lack of public awareness. And if the world is ever going to combat and effectively defeat the coronavirus it needs to combat and effectively defeat the problems that the homeless community faces.
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