Beneath bridges and overpasses, the homeless people of Caracas are spending the holidays in encampments of cardboard and discarded wooden palettes.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has pledged to do away with homelessness in the country through an aggressive outreach program that is offering street people communal housing, drug treatment and a modest stipend.
But while the government says it has helped thousands, others remain on the streets, presenting a formidable challenge to the newly re-elected Chavez as he aims to make good on a promise to fix an entrenched and complex problem.
PHOTO: AP
Luis Mavares, a scrawny man of 37 who has lived under a highway offramp for 11 years, said government social workers had offered to take him to a rehabilitation center, but he refused.
"I know they're doing something good, but it's not for me," said Mavares, who sleeps on an old mattress next to the trash-strewn Guaire River and says personal problems left him exiled from his family.
"I don't like to be caged in," he said.
Others say they have received life-changing help from the state program Mission Negra Hipolita, named after the nanny of Simon Bolivar, the South American independence hero who is idolized by Chavez.
The program guides the homeless to shelters and rehabilitation centers, offering them medical and psychological care. Those who join can receive a paycheck equivalent to US$65 a week for community service work like clearing weeds or painting murals with slogans like "Say no to drugs, search for Christ."
"For me, it's bringing results," said participant Marco Barrios, 50, who worked cutting tall grass on a roadside recently and said the program is helping him break an addiction to crack cocaine through discipline and daily prayer.
Chavez, a fierce critic of the US government who was re-elected on Dec. 3, has started a range of social programs aimed at aiding the poor and drawing on Venezuela's oil wealth.
"This revolution cannot allow for there to be a single child in the street ... not a single beggar in the street," Chavez said earlier this year, acknowledging homelessness is a difficult problem in countries across the world.
Venezuela's program began nearly a near ago and is headed by a retired general, former defense minister Jorge Garcia Carneiro, who says many participants are adopting more normal lives despite struggles with drug abuse.
Last month, he said more than 9,000 people were being helped by the program.
Carneiro's ministry said an estimated 800 people remain on the streets in Caracas.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS