40 THOUSAND FAMILIES HAVE NO PERMANENT PLACE OF RESIDENCE CURRENTLY IN
ARMENIA

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The number of homeless families
increases year by year in Armenia: 40 thousand families have no
permanent place of residence at present in Armenia. Armen Avetisian,
the Head of the Armenian Habitat organization’s Yerevan Office, said
this at the October 19 action under the title "I live in a cottage"
held on the organization’s initiative. He said that the organization
has been implementing a program aimed at providing assistance to those
families for already seven years. 360 families have been provided with
apartments so far thanks to the organization.

A. Avetisian also said that the Armenian Habitat implements "A house
for every family" program. According to him, the program’s main goal is
to involve local self-government bodies in this process. "It would be
desirable if 5% budget of local self-government bodies were spent on
building apartments for homeless families," A. Avetisian said adding
that they are conducting negotiations with village heads, councillor
members for that purpose. The latters, according to him, have promised
to provide 5-10% of 2008 budget for building those apartments.

Information booklets and posters were given out, a small performance
dedicated to the life of a homeless family was shown, in particular,
within the framework of the action.