The plight of homeless destitute during COVID-19 in a selected location in Lagos State

Abstract

Homelessness is a social problem confronting several people in the society. Anytime there are restrictions in people’s movement like it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, the homeless destitute are mostly affected as they were stranded and exposed to so many diseases. The paper is focused on Lagos state. The study areas are Mushin and Bariga. because they house a large number of homeless people and destitute. Six destitute and homeless adults were purposively and conveniently selected for the study. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. Findings show that poverty was the major reason for homelessness and destitution. They mainly do odd jobs as their major means of survival. Findings also show that the COVID-19 lockdown period was a devastating experience for the respondents as most of them stayed without food but survived with the help of good Samaritans and even a little personal savings. The paper recommends the need for social workers in Nigeria to draw the attention of the government to the vulnerability of the destitute and homeless and also proffers some possible solutions to the challenge of homelessness among the destitute in Lagos State.