Homelessness

After first targeting refugees, the Hungarian Government has now turned its focus back to one of its old “enemies”. Just a few months before the upcoming municipal elections in spring 2019, homeless people have recently become a more intensely-targeted group than ever before.

India has the largest number of homeless and landless persons in the world, as well as the greatest number of urban and rural poor.  Shivani Chaudhry, the Executive Director of Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), argues that the New Urban Agenda must pay more attention to the human right to adequate housing. Interview with Shivani Chaudhry.

“We were born to the world to be at home in it somewhere,” wrote the Hungarian author Áron Tamási. Yet not only the feeling of being at home, but also that of homelessness may be a common denominator among people who live in the same space – in the same cyberspace.

An amendment has made it illegal to sleep rough in world cultural heritage areas, which cover Budapest’s entire city-centre. Now there is a long list of additional areas in Budapest where homeless people can be subjected to forceful removal and penalties. How did we get here?