Cold weather kills 14 homeless people

Two spells of very cold weather in the past five weeks have left 14 homeless people dead, according to local media.

On 18 February the latest fatality, a 40-year-old woman, was found under the Tel Aviv municipality building where many street dwellers seek shelter as hot air vents from the underground car park provide a basic form of heating.

Prior to the cold snap, municipalities in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem had increased their efforts to gather homeless street-dwellers into shelters and other lodgings, but many remained outside exposed to the cold.

Isaac Herzog, the minister of social affairs (MoSA), urged the public in January to report cases of homeless people in distress, and set up a special hotline at the ministry.

"We are working to save lives. We seek to provide shelter, clothing and food," he said, comparing the hotline to a military-run home-front operation.

Three thousand homeless

There are currently over 3,000 homeless people in Israel, most in the major cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheba, according to MoSA. About a third of them receive no assistance from the authorities, mainly because the latter do not maintain contact with the relevant people responsible for them.

Photo: Tamar Dressler/IRIN

A small space in Tel Aviv used by homeless people during recent cold spells as it offered some protection from wind and rain

A social worker for Jerusalem Municipality told IRIN that before the first snow of the year in January, she and others went out actively seeking people without homes to arrange free accommodation for them.

In Tel Aviv, A., a former drug addict who now works as a supervisor in a shelter, reported a large increase in the number of homeless people using the facility: "We have 18 beds and today we have almost 30 people sleeping in here," he told IRIN.

Volunteers and social workers in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv admit they cannot help everyone in need.

"We leave hotel vouchers for them and try to convince them to go there free of charge but [sometimes] they decline," one volunteer said. At times this can be because drug addicts want to avoid the authorities and outsiders.

Alcoholism

Alcoholism contributes to the death toll in another way. Numerous street dwellers tend to drink out of despair and to keep warm but consuming alcohol only makes them more vulnerable to hypothermia.

The people sleeping on the streets tend to be immigrants from the former Soviet Union who were unable to integrate into society, while others are drug users and alcoholics, according to officials at Tel Aviv Municipality's special unit for the homeless.

The unit scours the streets day and night trying to locate people in need and find accommodation for them, or at least hand out food and blankets.

Since the unit began operating in 1991, some 4,500 homeless persons were successfully rehabilitated, meaning they were able to find housing, she said. Most had managed to give up alcohol and found employment.

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