Hundreds of Thousands of Tehranis Living In Poverty

More than 200,000 households in the Iranian capital of Tehran are living in poverty, with families struggling to feed themselves, the city’s mayor recently told religious leaders at a national conference in Iran.

“There are between 5,000 to 600,000 wealthy households in Tehran,” Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told Fars News Agency. But, he said, hundreds of thousands of families were on the breadline.

On average, a household in Iran comprises four people, according to research published by the Central Bank of Iran in November 2014. This number has risen compared to statistics for 2013, which found that there was an average of 3.47 persons per house in Tehran.

The Tehran Metropolitan Atlas Website confirms these findings, suggesting that three to four people live in each household in Tehran, but that this number varies slightly depending on the district in question. It finds that on average, households in southern and central districts have a higher number of occupants and that in the capital’s poorest areas, this number reaches to as high as five people.

During his speech, Qalibaf also told imams who were present that they had a responsibility to help those families struggling financially.

The mayor said, “You must identify the poorest households in the areas you work in and use that knowledge to cooperate with the Tehran Municipality to help them and their families.”

Read the original in Persian

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