Homeless given shelter at school

For the second time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the city Corporation has shifted the homeless, living on the city’s street, to a rehabilitation centre.

Eighty four of them were shifted to the Government Central High School in Attakulangara on Sunday morning.

Antigen tests were conducted on all of them as soon as they were shifted there. The two who tested positive during the antigen tests were shifted to a COVID First-Line Treatment Centre.

The rest of those at the shelter will be lodged at the school at least until the end of the ongoing lockdown in the city.

Street dwellers

“Some of them were employed as cleaners or helpers at restaurants and other facilities, some are lottery sellers, while others have lived on the streets or bus stands for long. With the restaurants and other establishments remaining closed, they had nowhere else to go and hence were shifted to the rehabilitation centre, which is being managed by the Corporation along with the Social Welfare Department. We are appointing four caretakers to run the centre and to provide food and other necessities. It is a good sign that only two tested positive out of all of them,” said a Corporation official about the shelter.

National lockdown

Early in April, soon after the nationwide lockdown was declared, the Corporation had similarly rehabilitated 223 people living on the streets in the school. Some of those rehabilitated thus had cleaned up the shrubs on the school campus and set up a garden there, which was lauded as an act of dedication and hard work.