More than 2,000 people - employees of the Moscow Department of Social Protection and volunteers of specialized public organizations (including Volunteer People's Guards), armed with the "Handbook of a Homeless Person" went out to the "Social Patrol" in places where homeless people and vagrants are most concentrated. Similar actions were carried out by the Department once a quarter and earlier, but on such a scale it is held for the first time.

The action began at the same time in all administrative districts of Moscow, it was opened near the walls of the Yaroslavsky railway station by the head of the social protection department Vladimir Petrosyan and the head of the social assistance department of the department Andrey Pentyukhov. According to them, for 8 hours of work, the patrol members had to identify, register and interview all the homeless they encountered (and write the data obtained into special journals, which will now be processed and analyzed by the Department within a week), as well as provide them with the necessary assistance: hungry feed, clothe the naked, send the dirty to the dispensation, the sick to hospitals, and hand over the drunk, criminals and offenders to the police. All these services were put on alert, for example, several ambulance teams were registered, ready to go to a call to a homeless person (and it’s no secret that on ordinary days, ambulance employees often have a very negative attitude towards such trips), if they will hear the key word - "action" social patrol "". Just in case, the patrols were ordered to write down the numbers of brigades and hospitals where the ward was taken, so that it would be possible to track his fate.

About a hundred and fifty people were present at the Three Stations Square, mostly members of the DND. Other public organizations were represented by the Bus Service "Mercy", the Homeless Assistance Service of the "Help and Patron" Charitable Foundation, the "Helping Hand" Charitable Foundation, created by one of the evangelical communities in Moscow, "Friends on the Street" and others, and from social security - employees Homeless Services Department. Everyone, except DND and Friends on the Street, had their own buses, there were 7 crews in total. At the end of the official part, route sheets were distributed to everyone and patrolling began.

On the square. Above, in the foreground, Alexei Orlov is an employee of the Homeless Assistance Service at the Department of Social Security, a former homeless person himself. On the right is a combatant from the DND

Employees of social adaptation centers also participated in the action.

The homeless of the Three Stations felt like screen stars

We offer you a photo story about the participation in the "Social Patrol" Bus "Mercy":

Roman is the senior of today's team of the bus "Mercy"



Bus "Mercy" is heading to the Kursk railway station

Mikhail, an employee of the Mercy bus brigade. He refused to give his last name and put a mask on his face so that they would not be recognized. One day he was sitting on the couch watching TV. They showed a story about the bus "Mercy". This was the impetus to come here to work and become a believing Christian. Now he has a confessor, and he studies at the Orthodox Institute of John the Theologian. When friends found out that he began to go to church and work with the homeless, they stopped calling. But he decided that everything was for the best and one should not regret such friends, and found new friends - among the Orthodox and colleagues in the new ministry.

First picked up on the street

On the way to Kursk we stopped at a sanitary checkpoint. Here the homeless have a bath, and they are immediately given new clothes

Near the sanitary checkpoint. Former homeless children, they grew up and turned into young men - strong, confident and daring. And lead the way of life to which they are accustomed since childhood

Mikhail bypasses the "subordinate" territory near the Kursk railway station. He knows where to look for the homeless. Approaching them, he wonders if they need medical attention or clothes and sends them to the bus, which is located nearby. Most homeless people know Misha and communicate with him kindly and with gratitude.

But many of them reacted violently and aggressively to video and photo cameras. Someone swore, and someone even threatened to break it with a stone

The homeless feed the dogs. First, they, like no one else, know the hard lot of vagrancy. And secondly, some of them have "their" flocks that protect their masters. So about two years ago, one of the homeless enjoyed the patronage of a dog pack, they protected him, in winter he warmed himself from them. When he died they ate him

Clothes and medicines are distributed from the bus to those in need.

A passer-by is not homeless, but her pension has already ended and she is interested: are they handing out food on the bus?

Also, the correspondent of the site Miloserdiye.ru took part in the raid of the Orthodox service for helping the homeless of the Helper and Patron Foundation. It is led by Ilya Kuskov, who until the fall of last year was the head of Mercy. Now he has two minibuses that run around the outskirts of Moscow four days a week, you can call them to the homeless (tel. 8 905 599 00 25), but, as Ilya says, the ambulance will arrive faster than us anyway. Imagine - we are now at the Three Stations, and then they will call us somewhere in Vykhino or Bibirevo! And more traffic jams! But during the day, if necessary, we will drive up.
When Ilya and his staff started this project, they traveled around the neighborhoods of all 107 Moscow metro stations and studied the situation with the homeless on the ground. “The Mercy bus operates at stations, we are on the outskirts,” said Ilya. - The difference is very significant. At the stations, people are hot, often conflicting, at the stations there is constant movement, seething. The homeless outskirts are much quieter, more humble, disciplined - and, by the way, more well-groomed, although there are a lot of drug addicts.


Bus of the help service for the homeless of the Charitable Foundation "Helper and Patron"

The standard team of the Service includes both a paramedic and a social worker, but today they all remained on the usual route, to the Sots. Patrol” was attended only by Ilya and the driver Leonid, they were joined by “horseless” girls from the organization “Friends on the Street”. As a result, for the entire time of the action, only two people were identified, interviewed and attached.

For other participants, the results are higher, but not significantly. By the time the Social Patrol officially ended - by 18:00 - one of the two buses of the "Mercy" service identified and helped 16 homeless people, one of the buses of the Homeless Assistance Service at the Department - 8, the staff of the "Helping Hand" fund found it difficult to give an exact figure, but noted that they distributed more than 50 shorts and more than 100 cans of stew. It remains to be hoped that the rest of the homeless population of the center of Moscow could be covered by members of voluntary people's squads. It will become clear exactly in a week, when the calculation and analysis of the “logbooks” of the patrols is completed.

Mikhail AGAFONOV
photo by Andrey RADKEVICH

RESULTS OF THE SOCIAL PATROL ACTION, MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 2008

WHY PEOPLE LOSE HOME:
35% were in prison.
27% ended up on the street after family conflicts and divorces.
17% left and discharged themselves.
11% - deceived in the transaction.
7% sold themselves.
3% is another reason.

WHERE THEY COME FROM:
8% are former residents of Moscow.
10% - residents of the Moscow region.
60% came from the regions of Russia.
22% - from the CIS countries (mainly Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Moldova and Kazakhstan) and other states.

AGE:
19% - up to 30 years.
40% - from 30 to 40 years.
26% - from 40 to 50 years.
14% - from 50 to 60 years.
1% - after 60.
88% of all metropolitan vagrants are men, women are a minority.
Every second (approximately 45%) has a criminal record. The average sentence is 6 years.

EDUCATION:
76% have secondary, secondary specialized education.
10% - higher.
14% - incomplete secondary.

RELATIVES:
55% have parents.
31% - husband / wife.
57% are brothers and sisters.
38% - children.
Only 7% have no relatives at all.

SOURCES OF LIVING ON THE STREET:
23% - trade in theft, and say: "I take what is badly lying." Moreover, this figure has increased over the past year from 17%.
80% have temporary part-time jobs (most often wagon washing, loading/unloading, garbage collection).
43% collect dishes, banks.
25% are begging.

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Social Patrol.
Help for homeless citizens

Currently, more than half of Moscow's vagrants have housing in other regions and, in fact, are not homeless. First of all, these are economic migrants from the regions of Russia, who have degraded due to alcohol consumption and are engaged in vagrancy in the territory of the city of Moscow.

Among persons engaged in vagrancy in the city of Moscow, 94% are non-residents, 67% of whom arrived in Moscow to work, while 55% do not want to return home, 16% of them are foreign citizens. The main reasons why vagrants are unwilling or unable to go home are the desire to earn money to provide for their families, the availability of free food and other assistance, and the lack of documents and funds.

Under the conditions of round-the-clock temporary stay, the homeless receive the following services:

• medical care;
• clothing assistance;
• food;
• treatment in stationary medical institutions;
• assistance in obtaining citizenship passports Russian Federation;
• assistance in registration of disability;
• assistance in the appointment of a pension;
• assistance in the placement in institutions of stationary social services;
• employment assistance;
• assistance for non-residents in travel to a permanent place of residence;
• assistance in restoring the rights to lost housing.

The situation with vagrancy and homelessness in the city of Moscow

In accordance with the current legislation on social services, the main principles of providing social assistance to homeless citizens are voluntary and declarative in nature. At the same time, social services organized work to identify people in need of targeted social and medical assistance.

Technology "social patrol"

Social educators and volunteers are involved as the main performers of rehabilitation and preventive activities in this technology.

"Social Patrol" is a very effective method of working in a social environment that allows you to quickly contact the target groups of the marginalized, provide relevant social assistance and support to those in need. This technology is implemented through the use of a mobile team of specialists who daily visit certain places in the settlement by car. The two most effective are:

• 1) work with marginalized people who spend most of their time on the street (the homeless, sex workers, informal groups, etc.);
• 2) work on emergency response to the revealed facts of maladjustment, threats to life, etc. (raids on the places of stay of children and adolescents: nightclubs, Internet cafes, etc., sending information about a security threat to a minor, etc.).

The use of this technology makes it possible to respond to the most acute social signals, come to new group accommodation points, bring food, hygiene products, simple first-aid kits, second-hand clothes, various printed materials (magazines, booklets), and provide prompt medical, psychological and other assistance. Regular visits create an external rhythm of life for clients.

In the "social patrol" one or two minibuses can work in shifts (night and day), tracking potential customers who are just on the street and show signs of "field behavior". This is extremely important from a preventive point of view. In the first case, such work provides a lot useful information about the situation on the street as a whole, the ways in which clients get on the street at the early stages of non-institutional existence, etc. In the second case, this allows maintaining a high level of control over the behavior of members of the target groups (for example, over the fulfillment by parents of their duties towards the child, etc.). d.).

The "social patrol" includes employees of one or another unit, depending on the purpose of the raid. For example, for a raid on the locations of drug dens, the patrol task force usually includes a social pedagogue, a narcologist, and a representative of the internal affairs bodies. To visit the places of residence of homeless children, an employee of the commission on juvenile affairs may be involved; to visit the family - an employee of the social protection authorities, etc. The main thing in the selection of members of the patrol is the inclusion in its composition of specialists who are sincerely interested in the fate of representatives of the target group and use this form of organization of activity for real assistance to clients, and not for the formal "acquisition" of the next report on the official line.

The "social patrol" technology includes the following steps:

• 1) definition of the target group of clients;
• 2) identification of typical locations of group members;
• 3) diagnosis of the main actual needs of the group members, identification of possible options and forms of assistance and support;
• 4) assessment of the necessary resource support for assistance;
• 5) development of the route of daily auto-raids;
• 6) determination of the time schedule for arrival at the next "point" and the duration of stay at it;
• 7) preparation of materials advertising the terms and content of consulting/rehabilitation and other activities and services, distribution of these materials among members of the target group;
• 8) implementation of raid activities;
• 9) correction of the content and forms of assistance depending on the results of communication with clients.

Case technology

Social educators are involved as the main performers of rehabilitation and preventive activities in this technology. Case management technology social casework or case management ) allows in the course of interaction with the social pedagogue to solve the actual problems of the client. The technology is implemented through assigning a certain number of clients to a specific social pedagogue. Activities are carried out in accordance with the following principles:

• a) the problem is identified jointly with the client;
• b) assistance is aimed at improving the condition and position of the client in this moment and does not imply the achievement of global results (immediately returned home, tomorrow to go to school, etc.);
• c) a certain period is allotted for solving each problem, agreed in advance with the child and agreed with him;
• d) in the absence of progress in solving the problem by the specified deadline, the main methods for solving the problem and the program of activities with the client are reviewed.

The technology includes the following steps;

• 1) determination of the totality of the client's problems;
• 2) assessment of the subjective significance for the client of specific problems;
• 3) identification of problems in the solution of which the client wants to accept the help of a social pedagogue;
• 4) building a hierarchy of problems agreed with the client and determining approximate deadlines for their solution;
• 5) definition of a working group of specialists to help solve the client's problem;
• 6) drawing up an approximate schedule for the work of the group and the tasks of each of the participants;
• 7) conclusion of an agreement on joint activities to solve a specific problem, indicating the content of the activities of the parties (social educator and client), terms of activity, approximate results and options for stimulating (for fulfilling) or punishing (for non-fulfillment) the terms of the contract. Cash and material bonuses can be used as incentives
• (a set of clothes, stationery, office equipment, electrical goods, household appliances), as well as various types of services: a subscription to the pool, payment for free meals at school, free access to a computer salon, etc. Suspension of these subscriptions may serve as a punishment;
• 8) work under the contract:
• 9) summing up on a specific problem, assessing the result achieved;
• 10) making a decision to continue supporting the client or to stop working with him and transfer the case to another specialist.

The attitude of the majority of citizens towards representatives of the marginalized strata of the population is one of the most important criteria for the social health of society as a whole. The main direction of socio-pedagogical activity should be the development of a tolerant, understanding and supportive attitude towards the marginalized in society, preventing their exclusion from the sphere of active social life.

In winter, the Social Patrol helps about 100 homeless people a day. Brigades go to everyone who finds himself in a difficult life situation on the streets of the city. If necessary, they are provided with medical assistance. And then, with their consent, they are brought to Center for social adaptation for persons without a fixed place of residence and employment named after E.P. Glinka. Also on the five railway station squares there are mobile heating points - storage buses of the "Social Patrol". They are designed for 90 seats and work here around the clock.

Every day, 26 cars of the Social Patrol mobile service go out onto the streets of Moscow. Brigades travel around the city, inspecting railway stations, railway stations, places near large shopping centers where people with no fixed place of residence gather. In addition, "Social Patrol" promptly responds to calls received on the dispatcher's phone. Citizens report where and in what condition they saw a person in need of help. More than 4,000 people received help last year alone.

In winter, the brigades are on duty in an enhanced mode. So, on average, the Social Patrol helps about 100 people without a fixed place of residence per day. In severe frosts, their number can reach 150 people per day (for comparison: in summer it is about 50 people). Since the beginning of 2019, the dispatch service has received over 450 calls.

“We have been keeping statistics for 15 years. Per last years mortality from hypothermia has decreased significantly. If in 2002-2003 1223 people died in winter, then in 2017-2018. thanks to an effective and comprehensive assistance system - 11. This is due to qualitative changes in helping homeless people. Now tents with heating and hot meals are operating in Moscow, large-scale assistance is being provided in hospitals, the Social Patrol is working,- tells Sergei Timoshenkov, Director of the Center for Social Adaptation for Persons without a Fixed Place of Residence named after E.P. Glinka.

With the consent of the person, the “Social Patrol” brings him to the Center for Social Adaptation named after. E.P. Glinka. Here he can spend the night, wash, receive medical care. He is given clothes and shoes, fed in the dining room. They help even if the person is from another city or does not have identity documents. In winter, the restriction on the reception of people in alcoholic intoxication is also removed.

The Social Patrol has 80 social workers and 60 drivers. Some of them once lived on the street themselves, but thanks to the Center they have found hope and started a new life.

She told her story Elena Granina, who went through a difficult path before becoming an employee of the Social Patrol. She found herself on the street without documents in 2002. For several years I traveled by train and tried to rent a room. By a lucky chance, I heard about the Center for Social Adaptation. Decided to ask for help.

“In the center, she worked as a nurse-cleaner, and lived there. During this time, they helped me to make new documents, and I officially got a job. Then a few years later they helped with housing. When the Social Patrol was created, I asked to work there. At first she was on duty in a walking brigade, we worked on the territory of the Moscow Metro. Someone was simply washed away, someone was taken to a social center. When the mobile service appeared on the machines, I moved there. Now I'm on call, "- shared Elena Granina.

People without a fixed place of residence can count not only on temporary residence, but also on social services. Employees help to restore documents, return home, if necessary, arrange registration, pension, disability group, assist in finding a job, legal and psychological assistance.

“Our Center for Social Adaptation is designed for 900 beds. In the reception department, a person can wash, change clothes, receive first aid and overnight stay. If he wants to stay at the Center for three days, the commission collects information and determines whether the citizen needs social assistance. With a positive decision, a contract for the provision of social services is concluded with him., - comments Sergey Timoshenkov.