Little co-operation from officials

H.T. Ramachandrappa

Over the years, the number of homeless people in Bengaluru city has increased. Driven by a need and looking for opportunities for a better life, these people employed by the informal sectors, come to the cities. Lack of adequate resources keeps them on the streets.

Impact India Consortium (IIC) & its partners work in collaboration with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to improve the policies that affect people experiencing homelessness and with the homelessness sector to make services better. Project ‘Nammane’ is a social enterprise that works with BBMP to improve the conditions for the homeless in Bengaluru.

Till date, 9 BBMP shelters are being managed by IIC affiliates and 100s of homeless are being provided temporary shelter. Many of them have been rehabilitated over this time. IIC continues to support the homeless.

When we started the exercise in 2018, there was a lot of co-operation from officials and media attention on the issue. However, it all died down later. It is very sad that after all our efforts to survey the urban homeless and identify shelters, there has been no response from Joint Commissioners and higherups of BBMP.

State government should also declare October 10 as Homeless Day, apart from coming out with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for running shelters and establishing systems.”