Gori District Administration Does not Have Statistics on Homeless People

Lado Bichashvili, Shida Kartli

Lonely Tinatin Elikauri is homeless people and spent nights with her relatives. Her house collapsed several years ago. Elikauri said sometimes she had to sleep in the yard of library. She has petitioned to the Gori district administration with the request of alternative accommodation several times.

Tinatin Elikauri: “It is impossible to live in my house. I stay at different places. I am disabled person. They offered me to go to the tents for homeless people and I agreed. Self-respecting person would not live here but I have no other option.”

Seven more people live in the tents like Tinatin Elikauri. Two of them are women and five men. Most of them used to live in the street, so they do not complain about the shelter and food. The only thing they complain about is relationship between themselves. “They got drunk last night and started quarrel. I could not sleep all night,” one of the beneficiaries complained with us. Two days later 51-year old Zaur Sauri died of the alcohol overdose. Witnesses say he slept in the evening but in the morning he was found dead. Law enforcement officers could not detect trace of violence on his body. Expertise concluded the man had died naturally of alcohol overdose. 

Representatives of the supervision service at the Gori district administration take care of the homeless people sheltering tents set up for them during winter-time. About 24 people will have chance to spend three months of winter in the tents; local budget allocated 15 000 lari for the purpose. The sum is spent on the food and heating. Four tents are set up as temporary shelter for homeless people in the vicinities of Kombinati settlement. Inn is arranged in one of the tents; beneficiaries sleep in three others. Stove is placed in all four tents. Defense Ministry and Georgian Red Cross assisted the Gori district administration to arrange the shelters. 

Head of Social Agency in Gori Davit Chikhradze said they spend 3, 55 lari on two meals of one person per day.  Additional funds are envisaged for transportation. 90-day program is designed for 24 homeless people. 

Davit Chikhradze: “It is small fund. More is needed but currently we could not allocate more. In future, if local budget has enough resource, we might also construct shelter for those people.”

Gori district administration does not have statistics on homeless people. According to the applications submitted to the district administration and municipal board, 400 people urge for accommodation. Part of them claim their houses collapsed because buildings were old; others say their houses burnt down; some of them had houses damaged during war and others had houses sold by banks. Patrol police delivers homeless people to tents. The tents are set up for the people, who live in particularly difficult conditions and live in streets.