Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

The Armenian goverment`s negligent policy and its false promises on social welfare continue to keep the Armenian people in deplorable conditions. The situation has been aggravating for much longer than the past 3-5 years, as the problem dates back decades. Thus, many people have been homeless for 25 years -- since the terrible Spitak earthquake in 1988 that destroyed several Armenian regions including Gumri.

The massive 6.8 magnitude quake claimed at least 25,000 lives. The small town of Spitak was ruined, while the nearby cities of Gumri and Vanadzor sustained considerable damage. The tremors also inflicted damage to a number of surrounding villages. There is also an unemployment problem, as most residents of the affected areas have still not been provided with jobs.

Some people in the afflicted areas continue to live in rusty metal makeshift homes. And in certain areas, like Gumri, there are still quake-damaged buildings that have not been torn down and rebuilt to date.

Armenianreport.com reported on Sept. 3 that the list of people who were left homeless and are entitled to compensation from the government after the earthquake in Gumri includes 4,270 families.

1,056 apartments were commissioned in 2010, some 1,756 in 2012 and a promise was made that this year 420 more apartments would be built. While summarizing these figures it turns out that 1,034 families are left out of the program in Gumri alone. In the rural communities of the Shirak region, another 400 families face this problem.

About 400 of the 1,034 families were denied compensation, and about 300 families failed to submit documents by the deadline set by the Armenian government for various reasons and are still not recognized by the government as persons who are entitled to compensation, even though they lost their homes in the devastating 1988 quake.

Another 3,500 families in Gumri live in small homes, trailers, dilapidated buildings and have not been included in the list at all. And this number is increasing as families in which the number of members increases are provided with flats equal in size to the apartments lost due to the earthquake. Naturally, only a part of the family moves to the new apartment, while its other members stay in trailers, thus increasing the number of families not being compensated.

It turns out that the number of families in Gumri who have no status of those who lost their homes is increasing and has reached 4,500. This includes families who are waiting to have their homes rebuilt after the quake.

Currently not only the old buildings that are considered to be unique monuments, including those constructed in the middle of the last century, are on the verge of collapse and elimination in Gumri.

Although most of these buildings are residential homes, after the earthquake they have not been restored and strengthened. Residents of those homes are not listed as families who are entitled to housing compensation from the state.

It appears that the Armenian government`s useless spending policy is not bound to solve the issue in the coming decades, as the authorities are engaged in a policy of occupying a part of neighboring Azerbaijan's territory, which brings no benefit either to Armenia itself or its neighbors, leaving the country sidelined from development.