TN extends homeless intervention to 22 municipal corporations

C Shivakumar

Chennai

The state government has extended the homeless intervention beyond the 10 city corporations to 22 municipal corporations and one Grade III municipality, according to official sources.

This comes in the wake of the list submitted by Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to the Supreme Court last year stating that the state requires 116 shelters for homeless.

Sources said there are currently 22 shelters for homeless in the state of which 15 are in Chennai. These include 12 which are functional in the city and three which are being proposed.

Meanwhile, civil rights groups have voiced their concern that the population of homeless is based on census survey done in 2001. Surprisingly, the survey done by the state government pegs the number of homeless as 209 in Madurai but a survey done by a civil rights group places the figure to more than 750 in the area.

Interestingly, the total number of families identified by the Chennai corporation is 2,586 but a rapid identification process done by the civil societies reveal that there is a minimum of 5,132 families which excludes the inter-intra state migrants and the destitute individual population.

The non governmental organisations like Citizen Rights Forum (CRF) have also suggested the need for uniformity in the implementation of homeless shelters across the state. “Shelters are functioning only as night shelters not as 24 hours shelters as stated in the SC guidelines,” said Balasundar of CRF.

"Many of the shelters currently established are unsuitable for the families who constitute a major population of homeless in Chennai. The homeless should be linked to permanent houses, but not far away from the city. Houses have to be located close to locations in which they find work," said Balasundar.