The Livelihood Status of Homeless People: In Addis Ketema, Arada and Kirkos Subcities of Addis
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Date
2019-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Homelessness is a growing social issue in townships of developing countries like Ethiopia. This
study aimed to show the livelihood status of homeless people in Addis Ababa, specifically
focusing on three sub cities - Addis Ketema, Kirkos and Arada by planning to describe the food
insecurity situation of homeless people ,to explain the underlying causes for being homeless, to
elaborate challenges of homelessness\ using cross sectional study design with a mixed method
research approach. For the quantitative part data was collected from 164 homeless respondents
using a questionnaire while seven key informant interviews were conducted for gathering
qualitative data. A quick summary of the quantitative data indicated that among the respondents
95.7 % were male, 89.9 % were below 25 years of age, 91.5 % originated out of Addis Ababa.
the four reported causes for homelessness were found to be statistically significant indicating
that they are interrelated. On the economic front, daily income and frequency of meals per day
were strongly correlated (ρ=0.275, p<0.01). The study found significant correlation between age
and a respondent’s food insecurity status, as measured by the HFIAS score, (ρ=0.20, p<0.0),
years of homeless (ρ =0.20, p<0.01), and frequency of meals per day (ρ =-0.19, p<0.05).
Contrary to expectation, the study found that saving money was positively correlated with food
insecurity (ρ =0.23, p<0.01) suggesting that saving competed with food security of the homeless.
The regression results further revealed that frequency of meals per day reduced food insecurity
(-1.439 (SE = 0.582)), If an individual homeless saves money, then his food security status will
decline by a HFIAS score of 2.234 .Years of living as a homeless increased a homeless person’s
probability of being severely food insecure by 1.9 %. Shoe shining reduced the probability of
being severely food insecure by 35.7 % relative to begging. A respondent who saved was more
likely to be food insecure relative to one who did not save by 13.7%. Based on these results, the
study makes some conclusions that the causes for being homeless are significantly related ,This
study also showed that, food insecurity is very high among the homeless people studied
additionally Addiction to substances, especially sniffing of glue is common among the homeless
people. As arecommendation GOs and NGOs need collaboration to bring good outcomes and
much work needs to be done on implementation of policies, strategies and conventions.
Keywords: livelihood, homelessness, homeless, food insecurity, vulnerability
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Keywords
livelihood, homelessness, homeless, food insecurity, vulnerability