Contact night shelters for giving aid to homeless: Delhi govt

The Delhi government today urged the people to provide assistance to the homeless only through night shelters and refrain from giving roadside donations as it will encourage the vagrants to spend the night in the lodgings.
"All those who want to give donations to the homeless can either contact the 24x7 control room of Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) or do so by going to the nearest night shelter.
"People should abstain from doing charity on roads like donating blankets, food and other aids for the homeless as it encourages the people not to go to the night shelter and remain in the open which is harmful for the person," said VK Jain, CEO of DUSIB.

He also sought participation of the community to ensure no homeless spends night in the open and clarified that DUSIB can only persuade, not "force" a homeless person to shift to a night shelter.
"A lot of people ask us why despite arrangements, people are seen spending night on roads. But I want to clarify that there is no provision in the Constitution by which we can force a homeless person to shift to night shelters. We can only persuade them and we are doing that," Jain said.
Reacting to the data released by an NGO Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), which put the number of deaths of homeless between January 19 and 20 at seven, Jain said there is no clarity as to what caused these deaths.

The shelter management agencies and NGOs are operating 20

rescue teams, which till yesterday, shifted 6,002 homeless people staying in the open to nearby night shelters. 813 others, however, refused to avail the facility.
The government has also launched an app developed by DUSIB that enables people to click pictures of the homeless sleeping out in the night so they could be rescued and sheltered.
"We have rescued 312 homeless people through this app and 114 people with the help of calls made to our control room," Jain said.
At present, there are 260 night shelters having a capacity for 18,928 people. These include 84 permanent night shelters, 115 porta cabins, 59 tents 2 set by DMRC.

Of the 260, there are 20 shelters for women, 12 for families, 12 for children and 3 for drug addicts.
"The occupancy of all the shelters is being monitored daily online. As per reports available about 10,507 people stayed in the night shelters yesterday," Jain said, adding that each shelter is equipped with sufficient number of blankets, durries, mats, toilets and drinking water, first aid box.
10 medical teams of the Delhi government also visit them regularly.