Homeless families brave chilled nights in city

Hyderabad: With the temperatures dropping down every day, the migrant workers coming from neighbouring states and districts of Telangana are facing severe problems to spend the nights in the city. This is the season of weddings, and many unemployed people come to the city to earn daily bread and butter. There are in total 15 shelter homes in the city. Of which, eight are for men, four for women and three are at the premises of government hospitals. It is easy for singles to get entry into shelter dedicated for either males or females, but married couples, families with children have no entry in these shelter homes. The couples who don’t want to spend nights in separate shelter homes and families with children have no option but to brave the cold weather and spend nights at on roads, bus stops, bus and railway stations.

There is a demand that GHMC set up family shelter homes for people who come to work in the city and underprivileged homeless people. Rajaiah, a 50-year-old daily wager, who came along with his wife Nagamani to work as a daily labourer at a fish market, said that they were not allowed into the shelter homes, as there are no common shelter homes for families. Instead of staying separate, the couple decided to stay on the footpaths and beside shopping complexes. Apart from migrant workers, a large number of beggar families fight the chilled nights at the bus stops and on roadsides. Even after the Telangana States Prisons Department and GHMC officials conducted beggar-free city drives, their number keep increasing.

Indira, project in-charge for Aman Vedika, a shelter home for women at Namalagundu, said, “25 women and 6 children are presently staying in the shelter home. We are taking care of five retarded people by taking them to the Erragadda Hospital regularly. We are also conducting mobilization drives to identify the homeless women and children. We need more shelter homes in the city to accommodate as many homeless women and children as possible.” Presently, some 450 people stay in the 15 shelter homes located in the city. They include men, women and children.

Interestingly, all the financial burden of the centres is shared by the donations from locals in the form of rice, oil, clothes and blankets. Indira said that there is a proposal by the government to allocate at least Rs 50 each for five members in each shelter home every day. She added that GHMC is overseeing to deploy one home manager and three caregivers at each shelter home to organise various issues like mobilization, healthcare and security.

BY V Sateesh Reddy