CHENNAI: The construction of three new shelter homes that can accommodate 150 homeless people has been completed and will be inaugurated within a month, confirmed officials of the city corporation. Located at NSC Bose Road, TTK Road and KK Nagar, the civic body is planning to allocate one of the homes for men, another for people with mental illness and the third for elderly. This is a part of the corporation’s project to build 33 new shelters across the city at a cost of `1.38 crore. “We rescue anywhere between 60 and 70 people, fortnightly. People with mental illness and elderly constitute most of them, so these shelters will help accommodate them.
They will look like the existing shelters in the city, equipped with facilities like kitchen and restrooms,” said a corporation official and further added, “The new shelter at NSC Bose Road will be allocated for men. NGOs have been shortlisted for all the three shelters.” Apart from these, eight other shelters are nearing completion, including the ones at Gurupuram, Desam Salai and Driver Street. At least one of these too, will be allocated for people with mental illness. Having procured three vehicles to carry out the rescue operations daily, civic body officials say more shelters will be helpful to rescue more people, since a few shelter homes in the city are already overcrowded.
A recent study by the civic body found that more than 10,000 people, including children, are homeless in the city. In the recent years, nearly 2,000 people have been rescued and given shelter. The norm is to have 70 shelter homes for a population of 8.5 million in Chennai. Since the city is already equipped with 38 shelters, the civic body is planning to finish the construction of rest of the shelters by May 2020.
Apart from this, the officials are calling for corporate social responsibility funds from private companies to upgrade the existing shelter homes.”We are currently getting a fund of `10,00,000 per shelter home for a year of operation and maintenance. However, we are only able to provide basic facilities like food, blankets, mats, pillows and medicines through the fund. So, if the CSR fund flows in, we can upgrade the shelter homes with television, cots and CCTVs,” the official said. Currently, there are 38 shelters for homeless persons in the city, which are run by NGOs under the purview of the civic body.