Social Patrol.
Help for homeless citizens
Currently, more than half of Moscow's vagrants have housing in other regions and, in fact, are not homeless. First of all, these are economic migrants from the regions of Russia, who have degraded due to alcohol consumption and are engaged in vagrancy in the territory of the city of Moscow.
Among persons engaged in vagrancy in the city of Moscow, 94% are non-residents, 67% of whom arrived in Moscow to work, while 55% do not want to return home, 16% of them are foreign citizens. The main reasons why vagrants are unwilling or unable to go home are the desire to earn money to provide for their families, the availability of free food and other assistance, and the lack of documents and funds.
Under the conditions of round-the-clock temporary stay, the homeless receive the following services:
The situation with vagrancy and homelessness in the city of Moscow
In accordance with the current legislation on social services, the main principles of providing social assistance to homeless citizens are voluntary and declarative in nature. At the same time, social services organized work to identify people in need of targeted social and medical assistance.
More than 2,000 people - employees of the Moscow Department of Social Protection and volunteers of specialized public organizations (including the Volunteer People's Guards), armed with the "Handbook of a Homeless Person" went to the "Social Patrol" in places where homeless people and vagrants are most concentrated. Similar actions were carried out by the Department once a quarter and earlier, but on such a scale it is held for the first time.
The action began at the same time in all administrative districts of Moscow, it was opened near the walls of the Yaroslavl railway station by the head of the social protection department Vladimir Petrosyan and the head of the social assistance department of the department Andrey Pentyukhov. According to them, for 8 hours of work, the patrol members had to identify, register and interview all the homeless they met (and write down the received data in special journals, which will now be processed and analyzed by the Department within a week), as well as provide them with the necessary assistance: hungry feed, clothe the naked, send the dirty to the dispensation, the sick to hospitals, and hand over the drunk, criminals and offenders to the police. All these services were put on alert, for example, several ambulance teams were registered, ready to go to a call to a homeless person (and it’s no secret that on ordinary days, ambulance employees often have a very negative attitude towards such trips), if they will hear the key word - "action" social patrol "". Just in case, the patrols were ordered to write down the numbers of brigades and hospitals where the ward was taken, so that it would be possible to track his fate.
About a hundred and fifty people were present at the Three Stations Square, mostly members of the DND. Other public organizations were represented by the Miloserdiye Bus Service, the Assistance Service for the Homeless of the Helper and Patron Charitable Foundation, the Helping Hand Charitable Foundation, created by one of the evangelical communities in Moscow, Friends on the Street, etc., and from social security - employees Homeless Services Department. Everyone, except DND and Friends on the Street, had their own buses, there were 7 crews in total. At the end of the official part, route sheets were distributed to everyone and patrolling began. 
On the square. Above, in the foreground, Alexei Orlov is an employee of the Homeless Assistance Service at the Department of Social Security, a former homeless person himself. On the right is a combatant from the DND
Employees of social adaptation centers also participated in the action.
The homeless of the Three Stations felt like screen stars
We offer you a photo story about the participation in the "Social Patrol" Bus "Mercy": 
Roman is the senior of today's team of the bus "Mercy" 
Bus "Mercy" is heading to the Kursk railway station
Mikhail, an employee of the Mercy bus brigade. He refused to give his last name and put a mask on his face so that they would not be recognized. One day he was sitting on the couch watching TV. They showed a story about the bus "Mercy". This was the impetus to come here to work and become a believing Christian. Now he has a confessor, and he studies at the Orthodox Institute of John the Theologian. When friends found out that he began to go to church and work with the homeless, they stopped calling. But he decided that everything was for the best and one should not regret such friends, and found new friends - among the Orthodox and colleagues in the new ministry.
First picked up on the street
On the way to Kursk we stopped at a sanitary checkpoint. Here the homeless have a bath, and they are immediately given new clothes
Near the sanitary checkpoint. Former homeless children, they grew up and turned into young men - strong, confident and daring. And lead the way of life to which they are accustomed since childhood
Mikhail bypasses the "subordinate" territory near the Kursk railway station. He knows where to look for the homeless. Approaching them, he wonders if they need medical attention or clothes and sends them to the bus, which is located nearby. Most homeless people know Misha and communicate with him kindly and with gratitude.
But many of them reacted violently and aggressively to video and photo cameras. Someone swore, and someone even threatened to break it with a stone
The homeless feed the dogs. First, they, like no one else, know the hard lot of vagrancy. And secondly, some of them have "their" flocks that protect their masters. So about two years ago, one of the homeless enjoyed the patronage of a dog pack, they protected him, in winter he warmed himself from them. When he died they ate him
Clothes and medicines are distributed from the bus to those in need.
A passer-by is not homeless, but her pension has already ended and she is interested: are they handing out food on the bus?
Also, the correspondent of the site Miloserdiye.ru took part in the raid of the Orthodox service for helping the homeless of the Helper and Patron Foundation. It is led by Ilya Kuskov, who until the fall of last year was the head of Mercy. Now he has two minibuses that run around the outskirts of Moscow four days a week, you can call them to the homeless (tel. 8 905 599 00 25), but, as Ilya says, the ambulance will arrive faster than us anyway. Imagine - we are now at the Three Stations, and then they will call us somewhere in Vykhino or Bibirevo! And more traffic jams! But during the day, if necessary, we will drive up.
When Ilya and his staff started this project, they traveled around the neighborhoods of all 107 Moscow metro stations and studied the situation with the homeless on the ground. “The Mercy bus operates at stations, we are on the outskirts,” said Ilya. - The difference is very significant. At the stations, people are hot, often conflicting, at the stations there is constant movement, seething. The homeless outskirts are much quieter, more humble, disciplined - and, by the way, more well-groomed, although there are a lot of drug addicts. 
Bus of the help service for the homeless of the Charitable Foundation "Helper and Patron"
The standard team of the Service includes both a paramedic and a social worker, but today they all remained on the usual route, to the Sots. Patrol” was attended only by Ilya and the driver Leonid, they were joined by “horseless” girls from the organization “Friends on the Street”. As a result, for the entire time of the action, only two people were identified, interviewed and attached.
For other participants, the results are higher, but not significantly. By the time the Social Patrol officially ended - by 18:00 - one of the two buses of the "Mercy" service identified and helped 16 homeless people, one of the buses of the Homeless Assistance Service at the Department - 8, the staff of the "Helping Hand" fund found it difficult to give an exact figure, but noted that they distributed more than 50 shorts and more than 100 cans of stew. It remains to be hoped that the rest of the homeless population of the center of Moscow could be covered by members of voluntary people's squads. It will become clear exactly in a week, when the calculation and analysis of the “logbooks” of the patrols is completed. 
Mikhail AGAFONOV
photo by Andrey RADKEVICH
RESULTS OF THE SOCIAL PATROL ACTION, MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 2008
WHY PEOPLE LOSE HOME:
35% were in prison.
27% ended up on the street after family conflicts and divorces.
17% left and discharged themselves.
11% - deceived in the transaction.
7% sold themselves.
3% is another reason.
WHERE THEY COME FROM:
8% are former residents of Moscow.
10% - residents of the Moscow region.
60% came from the regions of Russia.
22% - from the CIS countries (mainly Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Moldova and Kazakhstan) and other states.
AGE:
19% - up to 30 years.
40% - from 30 to 40 years.
26% - from 40 to 50 years.
14% - from 50 to 60 years.
1% - after 60.
88% of all metropolitan vagrants are men, women are a minority.
Every second (approximately 45%) has a criminal record. The average sentence is 6 years.
EDUCATION:
76% have secondary, secondary specialized education.
10% - higher.
14% - incomplete secondary.
RELATIVES:
55% have parents.
31% - husband / wife.
57% are brothers and sisters.
38% - children.
Only 7% have no relatives at all.
SOURCES OF LIVING ON THE STREET:
23% - trade in theft, and say: "I take what is badly lying." Moreover, this figure has increased over the past year from 17%.
80% have temporary part-time jobs (most often wagon washing, loading/unloading, garbage collection).
43% collect dishes, banks.
25% are begging.
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Social educators and volunteers are involved as the main performers of rehabilitation and preventive activities in this technology.
"Social Patrol" is a very effective method of working in a social environment that allows you to quickly contact the target groups of the marginalized, provide relevant social assistance and support to those in need. This technology is implemented through the use of a mobile team of specialists who daily visit certain places in the settlement by car. The two most effective are:
The use of this technology makes it possible to respond to the most acute social signals, to come to new group accommodation points, to bring food, hygiene products, the simplest first-aid kits, second-hand clothes, various printed materials (magazines, booklets), to provide prompt medical, psychological and other assistance. Regular visits create an external rhythm of life for clients.
In the "social patrol" one or two minibuses can work in shifts (night and day), tracking potential customers who are just on the street and show signs of "field behavior". This is extremely important from a preventive point of view. In the first case, such work provides a lot of useful information about the situation on the street as a whole, the ways in which clients get on the street in the early stages of non-institutional existence, etc. In the second case, this allows maintaining a high level of control over the behavior of members of the target groups (for example, their duties towards the child, etc.).
The "social patrol" includes employees of one or another unit, depending on the purpose of the raid. For example, for a raid on the locations of drug dens, the patrol task force usually includes a social pedagogue, a narcologist, and a representative of the internal affairs bodies. To visit the places of residence of homeless children, an employee of the commission on juvenile affairs may be involved; to visit the family - an employee of the social protection authorities, etc. The main thing in the selection of members of the patrol is the inclusion in its composition of specialists who are sincerely interested in the fate of representatives of the target group and use this form of organization of activity for real assistance to clients, and not for the formal "acquisition" of the next report on the official line.
The "social patrol" technology includes the following steps:
Social educators are involved as the main performers of rehabilitation and preventive activities in this technology. Case management technology social casework or case management ) allows in the course of interaction with the social pedagogue to solve the actual problems of the client. The technology is implemented through assigning a certain number of clients to a specific social pedagogue. Activities are carried out in accordance with the following principles:
The technology includes the following steps;
The attitude of the majority of citizens towards representatives of the marginalized strata of the population is one of the most important criteria for the social health of society as a whole. The main direction of socio-pedagogical activity should be the development of a tolerant, understanding and supportive attitude towards the marginalized in society, preventing their exclusion from the sphere of active social life.
We understand that now people are much more interested in discussing revolutionary changes in the country than helping someone. But today's post will be about those who are trying to make life better regardless of politics. And they are not hindered by either the elections or the current government.
Almost two years ago, when we did a report about the Mercy Bus, its employees already mentioned the Social Patrol, which is coming to replace them. Finally got a chance to look at the activities of this organization. Shoot invited the annual "opening of the season." In short, they are engaged in comprehensive assistance to homeless citizens. Details under the cut.
With the onset of cold weather, the problem of vagrancy becomes more acute: not all homeless people can survive the winter. Recently, charitable and city social services have been helping to survive in the cold. Thanks to them, mortality from hypothermia has dropped sharply. According to statistics, in the winter of 2002-2003, 1,200 people died from the cold, in 2010 - 150.
1. The action began in one of the most "homeless" places in Moscow - on Komsomolskaya Square. In total, this time 12 foot brigades of the "social patrol" came out to help the homeless.
2. And several dozen vigilantes
3. Since it is the opening of the cold season that is accompanied by the attention of the press, the event was so large-scale. Usually all these cars patrol certain areas or leave on calls, and do not gather in one place. The main places of accumulation of the homeless are the railway station territories. Workers rarely go to the stations themselves now. Their territories are under the control of Russian Railways. And the homeless themselves already know where and when to wait for this or that social organization.
4. Also informational materials were handed out to the vagrants - reference books of a homeless citizen "Addresses of Mercy". In them you can find the addresses of social centers and charitable food outlets on your own.
5. We did not have time to hold a solemn formation, as the first customers came. Citizens were offered hot tea, social literature, and, if necessary, medical and psychological assistance was provided.
6. Help for the homeless is different: from simple washing to urgent hospitalization. Depending on this, the further route of the car is selected.
7. This tramp, for example, was offered hot tea, and then taken to a dispensation
8. Many people need help with documents or getting admitted to the hospital.
9. I honestly don't remember what this man wanted, but for the proper effect, he decided to show everyone the dance
10. And even torn shoes could not prevent this
11. There is work not only in the square. "Social Patrol" is waiting for the metro station "Komsomolskaya", famous for its homeless inhabitants
12. Homeless people in the metro are offered the same help as their "social colleagues" on the square. The most important thing is to fix the homeless, put him on a special account
13. Among the homeless there are also quite young people. Such "clients" are special, because it is easier for a young person to return to normal life.
15. Those homeless who agree to receive help are brought to the surface to the cars of the "Social Patrol". Their further path, depending on the desire. No one can be forced
17. And this is the most important bum at three stations. He himself said so
19. By the way, Bus "Mercy" also cooperates with the station. This is where they start all their night flights.
20. There is a huge queue in the station yard. Another part is behind the gate. It is very difficult to cope with such a volume of applicants. And through this window all the necessary information is issued. Those who request them are entered into a special list.
21. Not everyone likes to be photographed. Many people have tears in their eyes at the sight of journalists. Apparently they remember their past life 
22. The main task of the station is disinfection. The homeless are treated with a special solution 
24. And their things at this time are being taken to "roast" 
25. Also, many donated things are brought to the station. They are distributed among those in need. Anyone can give their thing, later it will not let someone die from the cold 
26. In this pressure chamber, the process of "roasting" takes place. Under the influence of temperature, all pathogenic bacteria die. Clothes then can not be called clean, but it is safe for others 
