The Homeless of Nagpur

Food, clothing and shelter, these three words are what is called the Basic Needs that every person must have to survive. Food which fulfils nutrition needs, clothing which insulates and protects from the weather and shelter to live and protect from natural elements such as sun, wind, rain and changing temperatures.

Dire Straits

Imagine being at the mercy of others or the garbage bin for food, having only one pair of clothing and no shelter to live in. As scary as it may sound, many Nagpurians live in such dire conditions. Yes, they are the homeless of Nagpur. You would find very few areas in the green city where you will not come across a homeless person living on the footpath or on the traffic signal.

Jobless and skill-less, these people have to resort to begging or even worse, to scavenging for basic needs. Often you will find a homeless person coming up to you begging for pennies. In other instances, you would find another homeless person in a garbage bin, trying to find something to eat. Looked upon as an infestation and not a human being, these people live a life of humiliation, starvation and desperation within a city gearing up to be a leading smart transportation and technological hub of India.

The places where they have to live will give chills to someone even on the hottest summer day of Nagpur. Some have a makeshift roof of a cloth to sleep under, others sleep under the open sky. Always at the mercy of mother nature, they are unprotected from the tar melting hot summers, the bone chilling winters and the bashing rains of Nagpur.

Better Homeless than at a Shetler

A look at homeless shelters in Nagpur gives an idea on why the homeless population seems to increase year on year even after initiatives to provide shelter and skills. Firstly, there are very few of them. You can find only a couple run by the government, others are run by NGO’s. Puddles, cow dung, mosquitoes, flies, bad odour are some of the unending list of reasons why a homeless person might prefer to live under the sky. The so-called URBAN homeless shelter in Temple Bazaar, Sitabuldi looks more like an abandoned horror house than a shelter.

The Homeless, who sometimes have Psychological conditions, mostly triggered due to the conditions they live in need help. They do not need pity or disgust, they just need help. A helping hand which will provide them some work, a government scheme and an elected and hired group of people who are willing to implement these schemes. They need private organisations who are willing to create a better future for these individuals under their corporate social responsibility.

A homeless person, unfortunately, is seen as a plague, a disease to society. “Prevention is better than cure” is a phrase used often to avoid diseases. The only prevention for these homeless is the willingness of people on the top tier of the society and the administration to utilise this manpower and pull them out of misery, so that their future is not deprived of Food, Clothing and Shelter.