Making room

Last year,over 300 people who live on Delhi’s streets died from the pitiless winter. Only 25 of the city’s 64 permanent night shelters are in operation,though some temporary shelters have been newly added. The Supreme Court has now demanded that all of them be fixed up in a week,and readied for inspection. Either way,the total capacity of these shelters is about 7,000,sorely insufficient for the capital’s homeless. Taking a grim view of the fact that two night shelters had been knocked down,the court wondered how the authorities could be “so impervious and callous to the plight of the homeless when the winter is so intense?” Indeed,it would appear that between the two municipal corporations,the department of social welfare and the urban development ministry,no one wants to own the problem. The urban homeless are not scroungers,they might work in construction,sort through waste,and sell odds and ends. They are citizens who have been simply priced out of the city’s brutal housing market despite their hard labour. In earlier days,destitution,vagrancy and need were accommodated by religion and social support structures,whether the Hindu idea of the bhikshu,Islamic zakat,or Christian and Sikh notions of charity. Now,the state’s welfare schemes are the primary recourse — and India has been incredibly incompetent in providing relief. In Delhi,for instance,there was only one dedicated night shelter for women,and that was also converted into a warehouse in 2007 — women are a significant proportion of the homeless,and among the most vulnerable. Finding space for night shelters isn’t that complicated,it simply requires converting and wringing more use out of existing structures. It’s the least we can do.