Last update - 00:00 13/02/2007
Rights group: East J'lem social services on verge of collapse
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
The number of families assigned to each social worker in East Jerusalem is over twice the number assigned their counterparts in the more affluent western part of the city, a rights group has recently revealed.
According to data provided by the Jerusalem municipality at the request of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), west Jerusalem social workers were each assigned 165 households on average in 2006, in comparison to about 365 per social worker in East Jerusalem.
Furthermore, only 15 percent of social workers tend to East Jerusalem's residents though they make up a third of the city's general population.
"The social services in East Jerusalem are in a very sad state and are on the verge of total collapse due to the impossible workload on the bureau's workers," lawyer Tali Nir of ASRI wrote in a letter to Bonnie Goldberg of the Jerusalem municipal welfare services department.
"The economic and social distress in eastern Jerusalem is one of most severe [in the country] due to the endemic poverty, rising unemployment, number of large families, lack of housing and the serious and continued lack of social services and urban infrastructure."
Statistics confirm the crisis is detriorating: Since 2005 East Jerusalem's social workers' workload has increased by over 50 percent.
Nir added that by law and repeated judge rulings all citizens must be treated equally. She called on the government to correct the "blatant discrimination in budgetary spending and manpower."
The municipality said in response that it was aware of the inequality and it recently transferred 500 social workers to the east of the city.
"Social services in the east of the city are undergoing extensive development intended to narrow the gap between the west and east," a Jerusalem municipality spokesperson said.