Turkey’s weather has started to return to normal, with the temperature increasing by 10 degrees Celsius as the effects of a cold front from Siberia that spread across the county last week began to subside. Police officers were on watch last week for homeless people, as the frigid temperatures posed a danger for individuals exposed to the elements. In İstanbul, police transported roughly 750 homeless people from the streets to heated shelters, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) reported.Under a project started by the İBB in 2004, hundreds of homeless people are protected from the elements each year when temperatures fall. The Disaster Coordination Center (AKOM) determines when the temperatures drop low enough to be life-threatening for those who live on the streets; once AKOM makes that determination, police departments, municipal workers and social outreach teams head out into the cold to find people living on the streets and bring them to a warm shelter. This year, homeless people were taken to a shelter in İstanbul’s Edirnekapı district, İBB officials said. “We provide all necessary things for homeless people in the shelters. We also keep reports for them. Some can go to nursing homes, if they request it and if the nursing homes have the right conditions for them,” İBB official Emin Gökçegözoğlu pointed out.
Ümit Varol, 60, is one of İstanbul’s many homeless people. He was taken to the shelter after he was found under a bridge by a police officer. When heavy snow and wintry weather descended on the city, Varol said that he spent most of his time in hospital emergency rooms in order to avoid dying of exposure and to warm up a bit. “I had an excellent life, but I was paralyzed in a traffic accident and consequently my life started to become confused. I was unable to pay rent, so I started to live in the streets. Once upon a time, I lived in foreign countries, but now I’ve committed theft so as to buy bread -- I am generally hungry -- so believe that a person could do anything after living in the streets for a while,” stated Varol, a one-time chemical engineer who graduated from Galatasaray University. He is aware of the fact that he cannot return to his past life, but Varol does not want to continue living in the streets and so he is worried about what he will do now that sunny days are expected.
“I haven’t been able to see my children for about 10 years” said another homeless man, Mehmet Burhan, noting that he regrets his estrangement from his family. “I am an alcoholic. My marriage ended due to this addiction. I have been living in the streets for about 10 years. In order to survive in the streets, I collect papers from trash bins. Last week I had earned TL 200 through collecting many papers, but now I cannot buy even a cup of tea because I spent all of the money to buy alcohol,” 43-year-old Burhan said, pointing out that he worked in a dessert store before he ended up on the streets. Burhan, who has three children, believes that it is too late to go back to his family.
Another homeless person at the Edirnekapı shelter is Cemal Çelikkıran. “Nobody supported me, both financially and morally, after I lost my job due to the financial crisis. After that, my landlord kicked me out of my flat, and I was forced to live on the streets. The streets are my destiny,” said 36-year-old Çelikkıran.
The İBB provides hotels for homeless people in freezing weather in addition to shelters. About 139 people were transferred to hotels during last week’s wintry freeze in İstanbul. İBB officials reported that 296 homeless people that were brought to municipal shelters left the shelters to go back to the streets after last week’s subzero temperatures.
