NI 503 - June, 2017

Homelessness

A note from the editor

The meaning of home

I still remember buying our first (and only) house decades ago; pinching ourselves that we’d made such an impossible leap into the financial void.

It was a late autumn afternoon when I slid the key in the lock and tentatively opened the front door for the first time. The rooms were empty and echoing; shadows of past lives seemed to hang in the air.

Then, gradually, that house became our home. We patched and painted the walls and filled the rooms with cast-off furniture. The closets and cupboards were crammed with stuff. And a mountain of memories piled up: babies, birthdays, dinner parties, Christmas mornings, first bicycle rides, play forts in the basement – life.

For me, that’s the core meaning of ‘home’ – it’s bricks-and-mortar, yes. But it’s more than that. It is also shelter wrapped in memory. That sense of security and of belonging is lost when people are homeless. But how do we calculate our loss when we are unable or unwilling to meet the challenge of housing those who have fallen between the cracks?

In the words of the old Phil Ochs’ song: ‘There but for fortune go you or I’.

The idea of home also comes under attack when the physical environment is threatened – as in our feature on the depredations of the sand-miners in Cambodia. And from Nigeria we report on the enormous effort to make the country polio-free.

Wayne Ellwood for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

Stuck on the street: only a quarter of families in the US that qualify receive housing assistance.

Photo: Nick Beer/Alamy Stock Photo

NI 503 - June, 2017

Homelessness

A note from the editor

The meaning of home

The big story

With house prices and rents soaring, can there be a remedy to homelessness? Wayne Ellwood investigates.

Features

Sian Griffiths reports on a no-nonsense movement which is reshaping traditional solutions to chronic homelessness

What do the numbers look like?

India's $15 billion grand project is already in trouble. Nimisha Jaiswal investigates

Civil war, mental illness, poverty, gang violence: housing insecurity has many roots.

More and more young people are becoming homeless across the West. Catherine Yeomans reports on how to tackle the issue

A round-up of inspired ideas and practices.

The end of the battle against polio might be in sight, but violence and public mistrust are creating yet more obstacles. Laura Jiménez Varo investigates.

Sand-dredging is big business, especially in Asia, where demand has sky-rocketed thanks to the booming construction industry. Rod Harbinson reports from Cambodia on an extractive industry that is mired in corruption and scandal, and meets some of those on the frontline of the fight against it.

Opinion

What is an internationalist to make of Donald J Trump’s vow to blow up the North American Free Trade Agreement? Mark Engler asks.

KidZania is an unashamed shrine to the sterile, dystopian human-made landscapes, Steve Parry writes.

Agenda

The people of Cajamarca have won an important battle against mining giant AngloGold Ashanti, writes Tatiana Garavito.

The rules of the game changed in the United States last month on 1 May when people experienced a taste of what life was like on ‘a Day without Immigrants’, Marienna Pope-Weidemann writes.

An all-woman band is using music to challenge China’s rum treatment of women migrant workers, writes Lydia Noon.

Hong Kong has its first woman leader and her ‘election’ is shrouded in controversy, writes Richard Swift.

Nguli Mchewa is not exactly sure when he was born, Maina Waruru writes.

What would a city without consumerism look like?

Protests in southern Italy have delayed plans for construction of a vast natural-gas pipeline into Europe, writes Sarah Shoraka.

Campaigners have begun legal proceedings to gain possession of a ‘living memorial’ to Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, Celestine AkpoBari reports.

Nine-year-old Ridhima Pandey is fed up with inaction on climate change, writes Amy Hall.

Youth services un-axed; Metal-mines out!; Exhausting ink

Regulars

Praise, blame and all points in between? Your feedback published in the June 2017 magazine.

Amy Booth visits a Bolivian isolated indigenous community fallen on hard times, striving to keep their culture alive

Simon Kneebone's cartoon from our June magazine.

Power rests in the hands of a corrupt military and political oligarchy that denies people the right to self-determination, reports Hamza Hamouchene.

Wissam Asaad from Syria.

Polyp's latest cartoon, from our June magazine.

He puts his life on the line to protect the Democratic Republic of Congo’s national parks. Veronique Mistiaen talks to the dedicated conservationist.

Chandan Robert Rebeiro captures a budding Bangladeshi photographer.

Kim Jong-un's headline grabbing aggressive irrationalism takes some beating (though he might have met his match in recent times...)

Marc Robert's monthly cartoon, from our June magazine.

The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist talks to Graeme Green about extremism, the refugee crisis and feeling at home in the past.

Film, Book & Music Reviews

Machines; The Other Side of Hope: what should be on your watchlist this month.

Mogoya by Oumou Sangaré; The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda by Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda: our music reviews of the month.

Billy Bragg's new book; Sorry to Disrupt the Peace; Breaking Sudan and others

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