The Hindu       25.07.2016

One more shelter in city for urban homeless

The Mangaluru City Corporation has built one more free shelter for the urban homeless.

Minister
in-charge of Dakshina Kannada, B. Ramanath Rai, inaugurated the
facility, the third one in the city, at Kasba Bazar building at Bunder
on Sunday. It can accommodate 75 persons.

With this, the civic body has created shelters to house 145 people at three locations.

Earlier,
it had created a facility at Urwa Community Hall to accommodate 50
people and at a building owned by the Mangaluru City Corporation
building near Sharavu Mahaganapathi temple to house 20 people.

Facilities

Addressing
presspersons after inaugurating the facility, Mr. Rai said that the
shelter at Bunder has dormitory for 36 men, including four for men with
disabilities, and dormitory for 20 women, including four for women with
disabilities.

In addition to it, it has a dormitory
room to accommodate 19 family members. The shelter has a kitchen, toilet
facilities, rooms for warden and conducting medical tests.

The Minister said that the facility at Bunder was on the ground floor.

The corporation would also use the first floor of the same building to create shelter for another 105 persons soon.

Cost

The creation of facilities on the ground and first floors would cost about Rs. 1 crore.

As
per government norms, city corporations would have to create shelters
for urban homeless for 50 persons per each one lakh population.

As per the 2011 census the population of Mangaluru city stood at 4.88 lakh.

Criteria

Accordingly,
the city now has the shelter to meet the criteria of about three lakh
people as it has shelters for 145 persons. Creating the facility for
another 105 persons would meet the requirement of night shelters based
on population in the city.

Harinath, Mayor; B.A.
Mohiuddin Bava, MLA; Mangaluru City North; J.R. Lobo, MLA, Mangaluru
City South; Ivan D’Souza, MLC, were present.