[mkagenius]

> In India slightly over a quarter of the population are illiterate.

Most of them still aren't homeless. They somehow have a house to live in. Most illiterates still don't go for a loan to educate their kids, they try to educate with hard cash although they do not get very good education but loans are a big no no(mostly)

[barry-cotter]

I recently read an excellent book on the lives of the extremely poor, Poor Economics, Abhijit Bannerjee and Esther Duflo. The authors are development economists at MIT. If you think that poor people don't borrow money you should really read it. Anybody who's secure enough to make it a blanket rule not to borrow money is well above the kind of insecurity that those living on less than a dollar a day deal with.

As far as homelessness goes a homeless shelter in the first world is better than a lot of people's homes in the developing world. There will be clean drinking water, a toilet, almost certainly hot and cold running water, a sufficiency of reasonably nutritious food. One of the facts about the lives of the extremely poor I learned by reading that book is that it's common for migrant labourers in India to sleep on the street or where they're working rather than pay for accommodation. Mostly at work does not mean dorms, it means on a building site or on the floor in a store room.

[mkagenius]

> it's common for migrant labourers in India to sleep on the street

but not all poor are migrant workers. Most poor people live in villages made by their forefathers.

Poor people borrow money but they do not have to give their house in return and become homeless in case of non payment.

> who's secure enough to make it a blanket rule not to borrow money is well above the kind of insecurity that those living on less than a dollar a day deal with.

But in the US, even people with degrees from good colleges become homeless because of debt. I will be surprised to see many people in India becoming homeless because of education loan.

edit: Just to make my point clear, there is a difference in mindset of people in India and the US. Indians do not risk taking huge loans just to be able to have a job at the end of college or take huge home loans to live a posh life and later become homeless in case of a job lay off.