Ukraine

Odesa Charity Fund “The Way Home” provide a number of services and assistance to homeless people, including street children. They run the Centre for Registration and Provision of Social Services for Homeless Citizens, “The Way Home” street paper, and a street soccer league for homeless people, including a street children’s football team “FC Domovenok.” Their specific focus is providing health services, education on HIV/AIDS prevention, and legal consultations.

A persisting problem is the legacy of the “propiska” (registration) system from the Soviet period – if a person loses their place of residence, they are left without any civil, economic, and social rights. A lack of “propiska” which is both a residency permit and a migration tool (often known as an “internal passport”), results in a person having no entitlement to healthcare, education, employment, and other basic services. Often known as “invisible people,” those without “propiska” are practically non-existent for municipal and state authorities (OCF Way Home).

The recent conflict in eastern Ukraine left hundreds of thousands of people homeless (Al Jazeera, 2015). The Ukrainian government estimates that between 659,000 and 921,000 people have been internally displaced (UNHCR, 2015).