×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Homeless give cold shoulder to night shelters

Segregation of families not allowed in filthy govt shelters, so mothers sleep with children on pavements
Last Updated 22 January 2012, 20:20 IST
ADVERTISEMENT

The wrath of the cold wave gripping the Capital has been particularly harsh on some 60,000 homeless people, who continue to live in sub-human conditions. This, despite repeated orders of the Supreme Court to authorities to look after them properly.

Grossly inadequate in numbers and lacking basic facilities in night shelter, homeless people prefer to sleep on the unsafe sidewalks of Delhi.

Throngs of people remain huddled under flyovers and hunched inside plastic tents. They seem to have given a cold shoulder to the night shelters.

“I lost my shoes and my money was stolen several times. These incidents are common at night shelters,” says 25-year-old Sita, who lives on the streets.

A prime reason cited by the homeless for avoiding night shelters is lack of hygiene. “The blankets provided at these shelters are unwashed and smelly. We do not know who slept on those bedrolls before us and the blankets are usually full of lice and bedbugs,” says a homeless person, who sleeps on a sidewalk.

The city administration runs 135 night shelters with a total capacity of 13,000 people. But shortage of such shelters and lack of basic amenities like water and sanitation are forcing the homeless to stay put on unsafe sidewalks and under flyovers.

For the last three years, the Supreme Court has been passing periodical directives to the authorities across the country, including Delhi, to provide night shelters to the homeless in winter.

On Monday last week, the apex court pulled up the authorities for failing to provide shelters to the homeless and directed them to “preserve and protect” the lives of poor people from the biting cold.

The Delhi city government claims that it has constructed adequate number of night shelters. However, the occupancy rate in the facilities has been low due a number of reasons, major among them being fear of theft and poor hygiene.

Admitting certain shortcomings, CEO of Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) Chetan Sanghi said the government has improved the infrastructure at most of the 135 shelters and even provided locker facilities in some of them.

“ We have adequate number of night shelters and we are in the process of setting up more,” Sanghi said.

DUSIB has been tasked to look after the shelters as well as construct new ones as per the requirement. Sanghi said that following complaints of theft at some of the shelters, the government has asked the police to increase security in and around the facilities.

According to Dr Deepak Gupta, diseases like fungal infections, tuberculosis and other respiratory infections are common at these places.

“Homeless people also carry communicable diseases,” he said. “Drug abuse is also quite rampant among a section of homeless people living on the streets. They usually do not prefer to live in a shelter for the fear of losing privacy,” he added.

“I have seen people selling their clothes just to get drugs,” said Raj Kumar, a street-dweller. “Once they get used to living a carefree life, the idea of losing privacy in shelters is not attractive to them,” said Kumar.

Another reason for people avoiding shelters is that there are separate camps for men and women. “Segregation of families is not acceptable to homeless people and that is why we see so many mothers sleeping with their children on sidewalks,” says activist Bharat Dogra.

ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 22 January 2012, 20:20 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT