Class,gender concerns at night shelters in the capital

“These night shelters are like mini villages where we can easily see the class,gender and hygiene contradictions among people living there. I have seen people refusing to sleep with beggars,” says Sanjay Gupta,Director of city-based NGO,Chetna.

26-year-old Salim refused to sleep in a night shelter where,according to him,people do not bathe regularly.

“I can not sleep with them. They do not take bath and have lice in their hair,” he says when asked why he slept under the open sky,even if it meant sleeping with a dog and a cat.

“Night shelters don’t suit everybody’s requirements.

Some people are slaves to their habits and simply refuse to change. Hence,many of them do not opt for night shelters,” says an official with the Social Welfare Ministry.

“Some say they are so much into the habit of sleeping in the open air that they feel claustrophobic in the shelters.

The need is to mobilise such people,” he adds.

Presently there are 64 permanent night shelters in the city while the government is working on 84 more temporary night shelters. The construction and maintenance work of the night shelters has been handed over to Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) by the Delhi government.

Out of the total capacity of 9085 in the permanent night shelters,665 seats are for women and children. Absence of specific night shelters for families is also one of the main reasons for women staying away from them,according to Gupta.

Just meters away from a temporary night shelter in South Delhi a group of four women crowd around a small bonfire they have lit under a flyover.

When asked why they were not sleeping at the night shelter one of them says,”We cannot leave behind our family.

Sleeping without my husband and children is not what I want.”

Subrata De who works for the welfare of children with the Delhi-chapter of the NGO Action Aid says homeless are part of the society and they reflect whatever happens in the society.

“Some people drink alcohol to cope with the harsh winter. But,those who do not drink refuse to sleep with the addicts,” says De.

Paramjit Kaur from Ashrya Adhikar Abhiyan blames the approach of the government to treat the issue of homeless as a short term problem.

“The aim of winter tents is just to protect people from the chill. There is lack of environment where people feel at home and comfortable,” she says.

Experts agree that there is need to have activities and recreation elements of a home environment to enable people to live with dignity in the shelter.

“The officials running the night shelter should be more friendly with the residents. Apart from it,there should be some medical help available since there are a lot of old people living there who are ill,” says Gupta.

According to a DUSIB official the department cannot force people to live in a night shelter and they are trying to make people aware about the locations and the various facilities available inside the night shelters.