Down and out in Ulaanbaatar

ULAANBAATAR – In a damp, single room in a disused bathhouse in the Sansar area of eastern Ulaanbaatar, 90-year-old Yuule Vandan cares for her disabled son and worries how he will survive without her.

Yuule moved out of a shared flat in an old Soviet barracks over three years ago while it was redeveloped but the project was shelved and she now struggles to pay 100,000 tugrik ($42) rent from a state pension of 250,000 tugrik for their one room.

She is one of a rising number of Mongolians living in the nation’s capital who have been cajoled or forced out of homes to allow for development to house a fast growing population and have been left in limbo, unable to afford suitable housing.

“They organised a beautiful event. I think they even cut a ribbon. They said they were going to build a new apartment building … It was all lie,” Vandan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Now we have nothing … Having no place to call your own is the worst situation.”

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