For people residing at127/2 Gurgen Mahari Street(the former vocational culinary school in Vardashen) extreme poverty is all the future offers. According to Harutyun Sargsyan, a department head at the Erebuni district administration, there are many people like this in their community.

77-year-old Harutyun Harutyunyan and his wife Shushik live in the kitchen of the former cooking school. When they go to bed they cover themselves with plastic bags to protect against the rainwater that drips through the ceiling. Their possessions consist of what they have been able to gather on the streets, since their apartment was robbed several years ago and all their bedding and kitchenware were stolen. There is no running water or bathroom facilities here. The elderly couple walk on a bare concrete floor and sleep with their clothes on.

Shushik is blind and bedridden and thus unable to do housework. Twice a week, every Monday and Wednesday, her husband gets two packets of sour cream and two hot dogs from a nearby soup kitchen. On other days their menu consists of boiled potatoes and bread. But their greatest cause of sorrow and concern is their 35-year-old son Artur's worsening disability. Over the last years Artur has lost all movement in his legs. The couple hasn't received social allowances for several years now. “What do I know? One day they told me that I was not entitled to it and they stopped paying,” Harutyun Harutyunyan said hopelessly.

We were informed by the territorial department of the Erebuni district social services that they were no longer eligible for government aid because of the recent increase in their pensions – the husband's pension is 14,551 drams (about $39) and the wife's is 9,441 drams (about $25) per month.

Department head Siranuysh Poghosyan noted that there were 3,462 aid recipients in the Erebuni district and many pensioners had been stricken from the lists when their pensions increased by a few hundreds of drams. It is more advantageous for the state to show higher pensions than more aid recipients.

“If the people in need are left off the lists we try to help them by other means. In many cases, for example, by decisions of the community assistance council, once every three months we render them assistance in the form of money or foodstuff. But we do not know about them unless they themselves come here,” Siranuysh Poghosyan said. It is not customary inArmeniafor social workers to go out looking for these people. If they don't come in themselves, it's as if they don't exist.

The worst problem for the residents of127/2 Gurgen Mahari Streetis the miserable state of their housing. Harutyun Sargsyan of the Erebuni District Administration notes that this is all that is available; the community has no vacant housing resources. “The condominium associations are supposed to deal with the improvement of the living conditions in the apartment buildings but often they are unable to do it because of a lack of resources. In these cases the district administration assists them. I don't know what the conditions are like in that particular building is but I assure you that there are many buildings in an emergency situation in our community,” Sargsyan said.

Hasmik Daveyan	Christine Khachatryan

“We have written dozens of applications asking them to come and take a look but they don't come because they are not interested. If they were they would have come and found out that our building is in critical condition. And, in general, they either don't know about us or don't want to know,” said Hasmik Daveyan, a resident of#127/2 Gurgen Mahari Street says.

The floor of Hasmik Daveyan's apartment is being destroyed by the damp. Her nine-year-old daughter, Ani, attends Boarding School #11, a special school in Sovetashen. When she was little Ani suffered a head injury and has difficulties reading and writing. “I have to bring her home on weekends but I don't know how to keep her. There is no place to sleep here,” Hasmik said.

All Hasmik's neighbor Ruzanna owns is some bedding she found on the street and the old clothes that serve pillows and blankets. She works as a cleaner at the Gum market. Her old house burnt down and she found herself in a dilapidated room on the top floor of 127/2 Gurgen Mahari Street, a room she doesn't even own. Her main concern is that her two sons are going to graduate from the Sovetashen boarding school and will then be homeless. She placed her five-year-old daughter in the children's home in Gavar.

Christine Khachatryan was forced to send her eight-year-old son, Movses, to the boarding school, too.