The word indigent is applied to those people who are in a situation of poverty and characteristic misery. However, it is important to point out that when talking about the indigent, it is not correct to say that it is a type of person, but rather that the most correct thing would be to indicate that it is a person like any other, but that lives in conditions of misery and abandonment. It is done since this condition is not exclusive to a type of person, ethnic group or cultural group, but it can be a reality that any individual faces, but this depends on certain external factors. One of the most outstanding characteristics of this condition is the factthat the person does not have their own income, that is, the indigent is unemployed or works in unstable conditions.
The person who is going through this situation usually has no home, reason why usually sleep on the streets or failing in a shelter, in the event that there is any help social by the government, If not, it will clearly depend on the help of people in order to survive. These types of people tend to live in a situation of social marginalization due to the extreme poverty they suffer. According to some states, all those households that do not have sufficient income to cover with the food basket are in a situation of indigence.
Another method by which indigence can be considered is by estimating the minimum wage: those who earn less than this amount can be considered indigent, since it can be taken for granted that they do not have the necessary resources to meet their needs basic.
At present, homelessness is a structural problem suffered by a large number of countries. There are families that have been in poverty for several generations, facing a large number of needs, such as the impossibility of accessing education, health, among other essential services necessary to have a decent life. For this reason, the authorities of each country have the obligation to create social development and inclusion programs with the aim of breaking this vicious circle of poverty and being able to obtain progress for citizens.