IRCDUC releases wishlist for homeless persons

CHENNAI: With the State budget session only a few weeks away, Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC), an organisation working for the urban poor, has urged the State government to provide protection from arbitrary evictions, enhanced access to housing and people-led habitat development.

A wishlist released by the organisation said that the persons from homeless situation should be protected from arbitrary and forced evictions. "Confiscation of the belongings of persons in homeless situations and dumping them as 'garbage' should be immediately stalled. Such practices by officials should be construed as violation of human rights of the deprived communities," it added.

The wishlist urged the government to provide housing for persons in homeless situations should be provided free of cost without burdening the most vulnerable persons to bear the beneficiaries contribution. As 90 per cent of the persons in homeless situations are dalits, free housing under special component plan.

"There is an emerging need to draft a comprehensive policy on urban homeless to facilitate inter-departmental coordination and to bring various programmes implemented by multiple departments under a policy framework like Rajasthan Homeless Upliftment and Rehabilitation Policy, 2022.”

All urban local bodies to ensure that special shelters for the elderly persons with disability, persons with mental illness, transpersons and migrant persons are accessible and set up in coordination with the respective nodal departments."

Other demands include setting up of special camps in hotspot locations and in shelters to proactively deliver eligible documents and enroll homeless persons to schemes they are entitled to.