Nochlezhka urges businesses not to cooperate with workhouses

02.10.2025

Article published on the ASI website

The director of Moscow NGO Nochlezhka, Daria Baibakova, has made an appeal on social media asking people to refuse to cooperate with workhouses. Previously, the organisation that helps unhoused people unintentionally became ‘part of a workhouse business scheme’.

Now, when finalising contracts for work with other organisations, Nochlezhka will include the following clause in the documents: ‘The contractor and its subcontractors do not have the right to recruit people from workhouses and are obliged to ensure that all workers receive fair pay, are free to leave their place of work and work of their own free will.’

“I know entrepreneurs who employ workhouses in an effort to cut costs. I know entrepreneurs who hire workhouses because they believe they are helping people. I know companies that hire workhouses without knowing that they are hiring workhouses. There are several intermediaries from legal entities between them. But each of these scenarios leads to the same result: the exploitation of people, profiteering from misfortune, and an increase in homelessness,” wrote the head of the organisation.

Why Nochlezhka opposes workhouses

The decision to add the clause to the contract was made after an incident in which Nochlezhka unintentionally became involved in a workhouse business scheme.

The contractor was a large official company and Nochlezhka hired a team through them to paint the facade of a building on Bumazhny Proezd.

“A few days after the work was completed, one of the workers came to us for help. That’s how we found out that unhoused people, residents of a workhouse, had painted our facade. It’s good that the man found out about Nochlezhka and came to us but it’s terrible that we had accidentally become part of a workhouse business scheme,” Daria writes on social media.

Daria Baibakova emphasises that it is not always easy to identify whether a workhouse is involved in the chain of contractors. A single clause in a contract cannot always prevent this. However, Nochlezhka consistently opposes workhouses.

The organisation notes that workhouses are a means of exploiting the labour of unhoused people. They violate the rights of those who live in them. In some workhouses, people’s documents can be taken away. Some offer money but always below market rates and others pay nothing at all. But most importantly, workhouses do not solve the problem of homelessness, they only exacerbate it.

Source: https://asi.org.ru/news/2025/10/02/nochlezhka-prizyvaet-biznes-ne-sotrudnichat-s-rabotnymi-domami/