The Chennai Corporation is opening two new night shelters at the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital. The civic body is also in the process of setting up a special shelter for men at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, which currently has only one for women. This will bring the total number of shelters at city government hospitals — which serve attendants and relatives of patients — to 13. NGOs that run these shelters say that while the shelters are popular with patients, much more awareness is needed to bring in more residents.
“We conducted a survey at the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital and are building these shelters based on demand,” said an official from the Corporation. Around 2,500 sq. ft. has been allotted for the new building. Each shelter, for which funding is ₹43 lakh, will have a capacity of 50 to accommodate men and women respectively.
Awareness needed
At the Government Kilpauk Hospital where the shelters were opened in March, both the men’s and women’s buildings have around 25 people staying per day. Project coordinators said more awareness is needed to bring in more patient attendants to stay there. While the shelter coordinators have distributed pamphlets, told security guards to direct patients to the shelters and visit the wards in the night, they said some patients still prefer to stay close to the wards in case they are closed. “Many don’t realise that the shelter is there, but we are working on this,” a coordinator said.
“The building is clean and well maintained,” said J. Alamelu who has been staying there for four days. She had come in to help her daughter in law during delivery. “It is much easier to stay here than keep going home to Maduravoyal and coming back,” she said.
The duration of stay ranges from a few days to a few months, with a majority of people coming from outside Chennai.
S. Ranjith from Salem, who had come to be with his mother who is undergoing treatment for burns at the Kilpauk hospital, has been at the shelter for three and a half months. Food is given in the evenings, sourced from Amma Canteen at the hospitals.
Some facilities that could be brought in include televisions, say coordinators and patients. “Children undergoing treatment for cancer sometimes ask for a television to watch between treatment,” said a trustee at the Institute for Child Health Shelter. A woman also said some toys for children to play with would be helpful. Patient attendants also asked for improved drinking water facilities.
During a two-day survey conducted six months ago across 204 places, the Chennai Corporation identified 3,574 homeless persons in the city. However, officials and NGO personnel were only able to convince about 50 people to use the night shelters as most people lived with their families and the shelters are gender segregated. Officials have said they are looking at avenues to link families with permanent housing as the possibility of opening a family shelter is not workable.
While the total number still falls short of a Supreme Court ruling, which mandates that every city must have one shelter for every 1 lakh population, making the number for Chennai around 70, the Corporation official said they have identified more sites for shelter construction.
