Shelter of Homeless

Giorgi Janelidze

After a long expectation and several dead homeless persons in Tbilisi during strong frost the Tbilisi City Hall opened a permanent shelter for homeless people in Lilo Settlement. The city budget allocated 1 600 000 GEL for its construction. The shelter functions since 2016 and rooms 240 beneficiaries. There are two outhouses in the building – for women and for men. There are 24 bedrooms and 5 bunk beds in each. There is a dining room, a bathroom, a laundry and a drying-room in the shelter.

 

The beneficiaries get two full meals every day; special menu is offered to diabetics. The beneficiaries can get first medical assistance throughout 24 hours. However, to get into the shelter, a homeless person shall meet concrete criteria: she/he shall be able to take care of himself/herself, shall not have taints, shall be registered in Tbilisi and must not have home.

The shelter is guarded by security service. Consequently you can feel the order immediately. According to the internal regulations, a beneficiary, who will not appear in the shelter during 5 days, will be expelled from it. 

We found a pleasant surprise in the shelter: the first child was born in it.

In private talks the beneficiaries do not hide their satisfaction with the shelter. They said living in the shelter is much comfortable than in the tent town in Moscow Avenue.

We saw two beds on the ground when walking around the shelter. One of the expelled beneficiaries O.N lives there. “There was not a TV-set in our room on New Year holidays. We asked the permission from the administration to take a TV-set into our room for some time.” His friend G.V. continued, who was also expelled from the shelter. “We found a place to fix antenna and then went to bring cable. When we returned the administration members said we had breached the rules and did not let us in.”

An employee of the shelter Kakha Lobzhanidze said the beneficiaries were expelled from the institution for having breached the rules. “Nobody controlled them in the temporary shelter in Moscow Avenue. They did whatever they wanted there. These people want to continue the same here. They tried to compel their room-mates to join this conflict. They do not follow rules and several times we saw they were drinking alcohol. They permanently complained and demanded others to disobey the rules. Finally we expelled them from the institution.”

The shelter is not full yet. According to the decision of the Tbilisi City Hall, in winter and in bad weather the patrol police officers will bring every person to the shelter, who will ask for shelter.

Nobody knows how many homeless people live in Tbilisi and in Georgia. There is no statistics of homeless people in the country. 

The publication was prepared in the frame of the project implemented by the Human Rights House Tbilisi with financial support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tbilisi. Human Rights House Tbilisi is responsible for the content of the article and the views in it might not at all express the views of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.