“If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?”
It is not an unknown fact that poverty is one of the most pressing problems that our country struggles with even today. We have been able to successfully climb the ladder from an underdeveloped to a developing country, have been able to establish an almost stable democracy, built our economy enough to compete with and invite international powers to our land and yet, this curse of poverty always holds us back from going one step further. The causes and effects are innumerable and just one of those, I won’t say most important, since each consequence is equally pressing and important, is lacking access to a roof over a head. Mostly all of us are privileged enough to have a concrete house built of cement and brick to live our entire life in. Access to education, health facilities and a secure environment ensured it all along that we, in fact, never experience any such peril in our lives. But what about that majority of population in India who rely on the weather to decide if a particular night outside would allow them to have a good night’s sleep inside their makeshift tents or would they just collapse on the footpath? Some don’t even have resources to contribute to the roadside settlements, they rely their will to live on the crumbs or pennies they sometimes get in case successful in arousing pity in one amongst the many passersby, such as us. We all have our own set of problems and complications in life to worry about but how ironic is that that even having those problems is a matter of privilege since more often than not, many of those problems are derived from our aforementioned privilege. A house is not only having a place to dwell and live but also an investment, a form of security and guarantee of solvency. Having a house improves our social and cultural status, and sometimes even economical.
Whenever a person rises from below the poverty line to above the poverty line one of his first priorities would be to build a concrete house from himself and his family. Only those who have lived without something know the true importance of it. Sometimes you might meet people who wouldn’t have sent their children to school or ever taken those to a doctor but still consider themselves well above others just because they have a house to live in. As much as this matter is open to debate now, we must keep the condition and situation in mind before judging a person’s priorities. Becoming homeless being too far-fetched a concept, even when we are too far away from our current dwellings for more than a couple of days we feel insecure. While most of love spending time out in the nature and camping in the forests, few would give away the comfort of their home to chase that passion of adventure. A home offers us comfort, a sense of security and we are under no compulsion to adapt ourselves to the environment or to the surroundings, because we have grown within them and with them- even relying on our most primal instincts we would find a way to live at home. Now imagine not having all of that, not having something you considered conventional and something you were born with and something you consider as if the world owes you, no you cannot. But for many people out there it is the only reality they wake up to everyday, hoping to scratch enough money, crumbs or bread to see the day through, yet unsure about the night. So while we must not stop taking our problems, troubles and lives seriously, sometimes when in a condition of absolute dread, do let yourself realize that what you are feeling is in fact a sort of privilege you are living in itself. Maintenance House will help you keep that edge. Hence, Transforming houses to homes since 2015.