Exactly one year ago Hetq Online published its special issue on homelessness in Yerevan. As a result of our research we discovered that approximately fifty homeless people in Yerevan die needlessly each year from the cold, and have done so for the past four years. There is no state body or even one single NGO that deals with the problem of 'rough sleeping' in Armenia. There is nobody that even attempts to address this issue during the cold winter months.

Each person that appears on the streets has their own story to tell. Many couldn't survive the misfortunes of their past lives, some were abandoned by relatives, and others lost their property and homes in the most unlikely of circumstances. All found refuge on the streets.

To direct the attention of public and state bodies towards this issue, Hetq Online organized an action on 27 January 2005 that included an exhibition of photographs by Hetq photojournalist Onnik Krikorian as well as the presentation of a documentary film, Nameless Graves, jointly produced by the Investigative Journalists of Armenia/Hetq Online and Yerkir Media TV .

As a result, several organizations and individuals responded, and through our joint efforts we managed to save the lives of some of the homeless by renting apartments for them, providing them with warm clothes, or by helping them gain access to medical care. Several international organizations also acknowledged the problem of homelessness in Armenia and promised to assist the state in resolving the issue.

These included the Residential Representative of the United Nations to Armenia, Lize Grande, and the Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR).

The Armenian government, which had previously refused to admit that the problem of homelessness in Yerevan existed, was finally forced to do so, and even allocated a building near an Old Age Pensioners Home in the Fourth Village for future realization as a shelter for the homeless. Nonetheless, the necessary repairs for the two-storied building to become inhabitable were not scheduled to begin until the second or third quarter of 2006.

The government then told us that it didn't have the financial means to do so, and the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Filaret Berikyan, wrote a letter to Hetq requesting that we provide the Ministry with a list of those individuals and organizations that had said they would be willing to support the construction of a homeless shelter. Although Hetq published the letter, no potential sponsors contacted the Ministry.

Instead, Armenians from the Diaspora suggested that they direct money to Hetq so that we could oversee the building's repair. Naturally, given that this is not the responsibility of journalists, we had no choice but to decline the offer.

Then, in December 2005, one Diasporan Armenian visited the Hetq office and offered to finance the repair of some of the rooms in the building himself so that the homeless could find shelter there. We immediately contacted Jemma Baghdasaryan, an official in the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, and through her the sponsor, who wishes to remain anonymous, organized the repair of three rooms.

Half an hour later we were standing in the building earmarked to serve as a shelter and the donor arranged for construction workers to start repairs the very next day. Now, as a result, there are three large rooms that are ready for the first homeless beneficiaries.

However, it was only when the repairs were completed that the Minister of Labor and Social Security Aghvan Vardanyan admitted that it was not possible to move any homeless people to the shelter because he lacked the financial means to employ any staff. The Ministry instead applied to the Mission Armenia NGO to provide temporary refuge for some of the homeless until May.

(See interview with the Head of Department for Disabled and Elderly Issues in the Ministry of Social Security)

We think no comment is necessary here, although it could be said that for one year the Ministry of Labor and Social Security has failed to do its job and has taken no steps to realize the decision made by the government to provide shelter and care to the homeless.

In fact, it can't even estimate how many homeless people there are in Yerevan, where they sleep, or how old they are. Accordingly, the Ministry is unable to resolve the problem of those homeless people who are fortunate only in so much that the winter has been milder than it has been in previous years.

Even so, Hetq has learned that seven homeless people have already died on the streets of the capital this winter.

Hetq Online