Voices of the floating youth – The experiences of youth without permanent housing

My parents separated when I was about 9 years old and ever since, my brother Satya I have been missing a place called home. During my parents separation, we bounced back and forth from staying in the farm house where my dad stayed (until our keet roof collapsed because the Farm Group didn’t give the Housing Group the permission to help us financially to fix our keet roof and so we were forced to move out) and at my grandmother’s house in the village and in friends’ houses. I stayed in Kailash for about a year during my teenage years and ever since I have been staying with my mother or house-sitting. Being brought up in Auroville and having only one parent earning just an Auroville maintenance and no other income from outside, it’s been a tough road to get to a place called home. My father still lives in his tiny (when I say tiny I am not exaggerating) pump house where the rice fields are. With my maintenance from Visitors Centre (I work in Le Zephyr) and the small income I make from my start-up (making beachwear and surfboard bags) I will not be able to afford a house unless I leave Auroville to go work outside, which I am not interested in as this is my home and I choose to be here in this beautiful place.

I am 24 and still house sitting and staying with my mother sharing a room with my brother if not house sitting. I am aching for that warm feeling of being at home again, a space I have to myself, where I feel secure and happy. I miss it since my parents separated.

After my family was asked to leave Utility, my parents bought a piece of land that we turned into a community called Happiness. When Auroville approached us for a land exchange, my parents left me in charge and returned to Europe. Since then, Happiness was evaluated and I was promised a sum of money large enough for me to start my life somewhere else. Unfortunately, I have been fighting to get the funds that were promised me. Besides being homeless I felt so frustrated and tired about all the meetings I had to attend, and having to explain my story over and over again to different people. Not having a home in Auroville has meant that now I’m even staying outside of Auroville because I could not find something that suited me in Auroville. I felt really disappointed when I didn’t get the help and support I was promised. After a long time, I now have the funds for infrastructure as well as a piece of land on which I can start building. I haven’t had a home since so many years that it almost feels like a dream now. I hope that I manage to keep it all within the budget, since it is common to have extra expenditure beyond the estimate or Bill of Quantities.

When my family and I moved to Auroville in 1999, we stayed in various places before settling down in Surrender. After having gone out for a few years, I returned to Auroville in 2013. Naturally, the family house is where I initially stayed. It has always been a landing point for my siblings and I. No matter what happens, we can always end up there. And, Auroville in general feels like a home. When it became clear that I wanted to stay permanently, I started looking for a ‘home away from home within my home’. I did some house-sitting in a few places but eventually ended up in the family house in my old room for another 6 months. My search for a permanent solution has not yet yielded anything concrete, but in the meantime my partner Samai and I are grateful that Courage has youth apartments where we can reside for a few years, during our search.

The situation of housing in Auroville is already a desperate one for those who have some funds. But for those who choose Auroville as their home at an early age, the dream of having a place is a difficult one to materialize. We all agree that an Auroville maintenance is never going to build you a house. So how do we accommodate our youth? Well, we trust that a solution will come. We believe that if you work for Auroville, Auroville works for you.

But in between the trust and the good thoughts, the little voice inside says ‘I really miss having a place that I can call my own’. Even adding a shelf in my apartment makes you think, “Is it really worth it? Can I do without it? …. We are anyway not staying long.” In the end, you feel in limbo. And whether it’s house-sitting or living in temporary apartments, there are always conditions attached, and it never really feels like home. Even though you’re still inside your home.

I am 36 years old, have been living in Auroville since I am 15. I used to have a house in Quiet that I had built with my own funds. Sadly, it was destroyed in the tsunami and I found myself without a place to stay, and all my belongings gone. My ex and I were offered a house in Sincerity through tsunami relief. Some years later, I left Auroville to see the outside world and left the house to my ex. Before I returned to Auroville my ex had left, and I was told by the Housing Board that I could not stay there anymore. So, I’ve been house-sitting and staying with friends for 9 years now. Sadly, I don’t have the circa 25 lakhs that it would take me to build another house of my own. The sad part is actually that if I were to go out of Auroville for long enough to earn that money, I would lose my Aurovilian status. It’s a real catch 22, and not having a home to stay in means that I constantly feel like I’m floating and don’t feel grounded.