Tel Aviv municipality workers hand winter kits to homeless
Due to the heavy rainfall and winter weather, Tel Aviv municipality workers from the welfare division are walking the city and handing out winter supplies to the city's 650 homeless. Tel Aviv has one third of all of Israel's homeless.
City welfare workers have been walking the streets giving out emergency winter kits to these homeless, along with hot food and blankets to those who have refused to go to city homeless shelters. "I only need food and tea," said one of those who refused.
Tel Aviv operates three homeless shelters throughout the city, however, many refuse to enter the shelters due to their strict rules.
Manager of the homeless peoples, substance abuse, and prisoner rehabilitation program for the Tel Aviv Municipality, Yoav ben Artzi, said that the 650 homeless in Tel Aviv constitutes a third of all of the homeless people in Israel.
"The connection with the homeless to the street begins on the street," he said. "They find their identity and develop (on the street), and that’s where they live," he explained.
He continued, saying "the challenge in the winter is to get to them and determine how much physical danger they're in, and to determine whether or not they need to be sent to the hospital… If they don't want to come to our shelters, we give them winter kits which include blankets, woolen hats, socks, and jackets. We do this to make their lives on the street better."
According to city statistics, 62 percent use drugs and alcohol, 12 percent are women, and the majority are between the ages of 35 and 50. Approximately 30 percent suffer from mental illness, and only 10 percent of them are people who have "fallen on hard times."
