MOSCOW, December 7 (Sputnik) — Moscow’s city laws on the provision of social assistance to the homeless may be amended by the end of the year to allow private organizations and companies to receive state funds for the provision of aid, Rossiyskaya Gazeta has reported.
The main purpose of the amendments would be to remove the city administration’s monopoly on the provision of social assistance to people in need, including the homeless, using government funds.
Andrei Pentyukhov, the Head of the Sector of Social Assistance to the Homeless at Moscow’s Department of Social Protection, explained that once the legal reform is passed, a register of companies and groups involved in the provision of social assistance will be created. To receive public funds, these entities would have to meet a series of standards on the provision of social assistance; eligible establishments would include places like soup kitchens, shelters, and so-called social adaptation centers, which act as halfway homes aimed at returning homeless people to normal life.
One such social adaptation center, a 1,100-place center organized by the Lublino Center for Social Adaptation, has room for people to get a hot meal, warm up, and get some rest, and to receive legal assistance, apply for identification documents if they have lost them, and receive a ticket back home if they are from outside Moscow.
Pentyukhov noted that over 90 percent of the capital’s 40-60,000 homeless people come to the city from other regions of Russia or from other former Soviet states. Natalya Markova, who organized the social organization “Friends on the Street”, told the Russian news site Moskva24 that about 70-80 percent of the homeless are working illegal migrants, and that they are reluctant to stay at the social adaptation centers since the centers’ ultimate purpose is to send them back home.
Private organizations, such as the Doctor Liza “Fair Aid” fund, the volunteer-run assistance organization “Mercy”, and measures organized by the Orthodox Church have existed in Moscow for years. With the passing of these amendments, it may become possible for the organizations to receive assistance from the state for their work.
Since the beginning of 2014, social protection patrols in Moscow have identified roughly 42,000 homeless people. About 10,700 of them were sent to sanitary inspection stations, 15,400 were taken to social adaptation centers, and almost 650 people were hospitalized, Rossiyskaya Gazeta explained.
