The Fashion Of Homelessness: Simply Offer a Hand

Psychologists have got used to describing ‘street children’ as people with behavioral deviations, that is divergent from the norm, since they are always situated on the border between a law-abiding life and criminality. They have also become accustomed to describing their psychology in broad strokes, claiming that an improper displacement of the rational and irrational caused their concept of their place in the world to be inadequate. Consciously or subconsciously they don’t want to be like their parents. They are attracted strongly only to endless pleasure and to dominating people. Their intelligence quotient differs from people of the same age who live at home by 20 points. Psychologically they lack a ‘future’ category. Doctors, in turn, add their characteristics to the profile: 24 out of 25 children are gripped by various types of trauma of the central nervous system, 17 have poorly developed motor functions. On the whole, it is customary to believe that the number of street children is almost directly proportional to the number of families living in poverty. That is, if people had just a little more money, it would be a wonder to see a child on the street.

At the same time psychologist Yuri Kalashnykov believes that the root of the evil is society itself, which is unable to bring up children. He estimates that the lives of only 30-40% of neglected children is due to parents drinking out of desperation, leaving their children to suffer. The rest of the children seem to follow fashion and choose the subculture of vagrancy. Ukrainian Tom Sawyers are attracted to the street “which doesn’t put pressure on you” and the fact that “there is constant entertainment there”. As social psychologist say, they have occasion to meet vagrants from very prosperous families or simply from incomplete ones, but whose parents’ behavior is completely socially adequate. It entertains the children how compassionately people divide their sandwiches with them in parks and pay for them to take a ride on amusements. Before long, admittedly, the company in which they find themselves forces them to steal and sniff glue. The latter leads to organic damage of the brain, leaving them needing psychiatrists more than psychologists. To return home, even if they wanted to, would already be awful for them.

Everything begins simply – from almost constant walking in yards. Incidentally, according to international terminology, ‘street’ children are considered as exactly those who spend the majority of the day on the street. In the USA, for example, control of the ‘creation’ of homeless children has become strict. Law-enforcement organs in all regions organize daily raids on the streets during lessons. If a ‘criminal’ is caught, that is found out of school during school time, his parents are threatened with an imposing fine.

In Ukraine, although they know about the effectiveness of such drastic measures, they are not carried out in practice. And if raids are held, then not with sufficient frequency, so that the appearance of people in uniform would prevent truancy. Admittedly, the once-off wave of charitable relations to street to homeless children has passed: they were dressed, fed and left... Social workers have turned to a new phase of work with street children in the form of games, during which they teach them and formulate in them an appropriate concept of their place in life. It often happens that western specialists, coming here to train locals to fight with such social misfortunes as child homelessness, eventually claim that they rather need to learn from us. One piece of evidence is street social work, which is undertaken by city social services. The social workers come to a place where the ‘nomads’ congregate, and hold psychological and drug consultations there and then, and only if the child wants, they take him/her with them and set him/her up in an orphanage.

City social services also run ‘clothes banks’ where residents bring unwanted warm things. Work centers for adoptive families have also been created. According to the Kyiv city social service for young people, several months ago, thanks to them, a family adopted a seven year old girl, who had spent nearly a year in cellars and railroad stations.

True, enthusiasts of such generous acts are not overly common in Ukraine. As we have described, there are good programs, but there is no one to push them ahead. Incidentally, one of the criteria by which homeless children distinguish “good” people from “bad” is the way they greet them. If the service employee offers them their hand, then the children believe that they can talk with them further. In our society, as social workers and psychologists say, no one wants to offer one’s hand to such children. Partly because all have become tired of acting with voluntary-coercive social niceties of Soviet times, and partly because they have not clearly formed their attitude to such social