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CHRISTOPHE STRAMBA-BADIALI
They are nearly 250 000, working and sleeping on the sidewalks of Calcutta. Many are single men, but there are also women and entire families sheltered over night in a simple plastic sheeting stretched over the sidewalk.
They are barbers, day laborers, ragmen, cart or rickshaw drivers, washer women, maids, street vendors...
Most of them are economic or climate migrants from rural areas or small towns and whose income in their home village was not sufficient to support their families. Unlike Europe or the United States, homeless people from Calcutta are not all poor, they participate fully in the human labor force, even if the income they generate do not allow to live under one roof.
They are barbers, day laborers, ragmen, cart or rickshaw drivers, washer women, maids, street vendors...
Most of them are economic or climate migrants from rural areas or small towns and whose income in their home village was not sufficient to support their families. Unlike Europe or the United States, homeless people from Calcutta are not all poor, they participate fully in the human labor force, even if the income they generate do not allow to live under one roof.
