However, on closer inspection, some of these buildings are being used for unethical practices and havens for illegal foreigners instead of housing needy Saudi families.
In Al-Awali district Arab News visited an arbita (a house built by philanthropists to accommodate poor and needy Saudi families) and witnessed a Pakistani national handing over some luggage to a Pakistani woman inside the house.
A door was wide open and there were no guards in the building. There was a closed room that belonged to a Saudi guard who was living outside.
There was also an Arab woman roaming the building with fear and uncertainty on her face. She told Arab News that her name was Um Isa and she was married to a Saudi man with whom she had a son and a daughter. She said her daughter chose to live away in her country of origin but her son decided to stay with her.
When asked why she was so scared, she pointed to the open door that had no locks and said it is more of a door for an animal farm. She added that though the house is occupied by widows, divorcees and disabled women, the door is kept open for 24 hours.
“There are no locks to protect us against thieves and criminals. We are living in constant fear and apprehension,” she said.
Um Isa pointed to the guard's room in the middle of other rooms housing women and said this was a violation of the privacy of the poor and unguarded women.
She described the house as a “ghost building” and said it has 23 rooms that are all empty and locked. “There are two rooms on the ground floor. One is occupied by me and the other by an Arab woman married to a Saudi man who divorced her,” she said.
“This woman through wasta (connections) managed to stay in the house with her children. She insists on staying here to receive money from philanthropists,” she said.
Um Isa told Arab News that illegal Ethiopian women were staying in one of the rooms upstairs and their next door neighbor was a mentally disturbed woman who would not hesitate to harm anyone. “So whenever this mentally disturbed woman comes out of her room, we hide ourselves in our rooms,” she said, questioning whether this was a home or asylum.
There were a number of locked rooms in the building. There was no reply after knocking on each and every one of them. Um Isa told Arab News that one of these rooms is for a Saudi woman who lives in Jeddah and comes here during the religious seasons to receive Sadaqa and Zakat.
She also said there are rooms occupied by foreign women who live for six months in their own countries and spend the next six months in the building. She also said there are three other rooms by illegal Ethiopian women who spend most of their time outside the house.
Um Isa questioned why these rooms were being given to people who do not use them. She said she did not know what was going inside these locked rooms. “This is why we live in constant fear,” she added.
Um Muhammad, an Arab woman who was divorced by her Saudi husband, told Arab News that the occupants of most of the rooms considered the building to be a nightclub.
“Some Saudi girls have chosen to stay here instead of with their families to have illicit relationships,” she said, questioning why young Saudi girls from good families are allowed to live in charitable buildings without justification.
At another similar building in Al-Otaibiyah district, there were a number of illegal African and Asian women and the building was full of rubbish. It had a very bad smell, like animal dens.
The building consisted of 13 rooms. All rooms on the ground floor were tightly locked. The rooms on the first floor were also locked. There was a young African girl in her 20s with her mother but they both refused to talk to Arab News. They, however, took Arab News to another woman, who said her name was Aisha Muhammad and that she was Saudi but could not obtain citizenship because her father died before issuing her with an identity card.
She said she came to the house after she was divorced by her Saudi husband. “I faced great difficulties before I could find a place here. I had to pay bribes before I was allowed to come in. Many of the illegal women here pay monthly bribes to the guard to allow them to stay,” she said.
Aisha warned that the building was unsafe because of the dirt and heaps of garbage. There was an open room with an illegal Pakistani woman who had no proper clothes on her and was crying loudly. It was obvious that her health had deteriorated terribly because of the spread of diseases and lack of ventilation. There were insects everywhere. Dirty water was also leaking from some rooms.
We found another Pakistani woman sewing women’s clothes. She refused to talk because she was an overstayer. In a third room, an old Pakistani woman started asking for money.
Another charity home in Jarwal was in no better condition than the others. As usual, the door was wide open and inside was Um Yasser, a Saudi woman divorcee who has two daughters living with her and a son who opted to stay outside. She told Arab News that she had been staying for more than 20 years in the house.
“In the beginning, the house was tidy, clean and quiet, but now things have changed,” she said.
Um Yasser told us that her neighbor was an Arab woman married to a Saudi who used to visit her occasionally during the evenings. “There are other Arab women in the house whose conduct is equally suspicious,” she said. She said some illegal Ethiopian girls were staying in the house after their mother was deported. “The door is always open. This terrifies us. There are girls who stay with us for certain periods before they leave,” she said.
Um Yasser said many occupants of the empty rooms come during Haj and Umrah seasons to beg for money.
Meanwhile, member of the Shoura Council Muhammad Al-Quwauhis had reportedly described the arbita buildings as “havens for moral corruption and security violations.”
He proposed that supervision of these charitable houses be transferred from the Islamic Affairs Ministry to the Social Affairs Ministry, which is in charge of social issues such as combating begging and reducing poverty.
Al-Quwaihis reportedly said the ethical, security and health violations at the arbita buildings were due to a lack of proper supervision. He called for close follow up of residents.
