/ world today news/ The problem with the homeless in Bulgaria has been around for about 25 years. At the beginning of the transition, over 90% of the people in our country had their own homes. This was in stark contrast to the picture in developed western Europe, where the proportion of people owning their own homes was significantly lower.
Over the past 20 years, a general process of income and wealth concentration, including housing, has developed in our country, but also in other places around the world, although there were so-called property boom or bubble, mainly through loans. Unfortunately, some of these people in the US subsequently went into tents when the bubble burst due to people not being able to pay their mortgages.
In our country, the process of stratification has also deepened – a small part acquired many properties that they rent out, and others lost even their only home, because of poorly planned and difficult to pay bank loans. This sector reflects the overall economic and social situation in Bulgaria. Additional complications brought the so-called a real estate mafia that sped up the process of illegally taking homes from people in trouble. This is not the only reason that made many Bulgarians homeless. Economic conditions have also made life miserable for our compatriots, some of whom have been forced to part with their homes, pledging them for exorbitant loans.
During these two decades, many people from the periphery of the country moved to the capital in search of livelihood and good work. For some of them, it was extremely difficult to maintain a rental home, and when unfavorable circumstances come together, being without a job and without a roof becomes a reality.
We recently did a study targeting beggars and it turned out that most of them are homeless, with few exceptions. For us as analysts, these phenomena are extreme forms of social exclusion and marginalization.
Where is the role of the state here?
I don’t even want to raise a question about its social function – it goes without saying. But I think he owes it to all of us in terms of the almost impunity crimes that are being committed by the real estate mafia. I believe that there is a whole network of groups, often with the secret support of government officials, institutions and lawyers, which perpetrates these frauds against defenseless Bulgarians for one reason or another. Without their participation, these crimes would not have happened. It turns out that the ordinary Bulgarian is defenseless in the situations in which he is dragged by the tentacles of this octopus, and private property in our country is not at all inviolable, as it is according to the basic law of the country. Yes, ownership is protected… but not for everyone.
The participants in these criminal networks take away not only homes, but also companies, corporate tricksters transfer huge debts to Roma, and poor pensioners suffer from thieves and telephone fraudsters. And at the end of this chain, the justice system slips, which is a real tragedy for these people.
Dealing with homelessness and begging has one name – economic recovery of the country and its social normalization.
And if the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a select few is not stopped, especially for Bulgaria, our country will continue to fall lower and lower in the rankings for the standard of living and the human development index. Such a turnaround, however, encompasses a long list of urgent changes.
The refugee problem is also involved in this cruel process. Unfortunately, our poor are also affected by this wave, but when they go to seek their fortune in other countries. They have the same difficulties as refugees when they migrate abroad – they look for work, livelihood, and when they don’t find they create or end up in ghettos, they start begging.
I cannot predict if and when Bulgaria will feel the signs of the refugee crisis, but looking at what is happening in Macedonia, I fear for the near future…
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Prof. Duhomir Minev, Chairman of the “European Anti-Poverty Network – Bulgaria”.
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