Shelters Urban Homeless Handbook

Shelters for the
Urban Homeless
A Handbook for Administrators and Policymakers
Commissioners of the Supreme Court

in the Case of Writ Petition (Civil) 196 of 2001
Shelters for the Urban Homeless
Even while sustaining cities with their cheap labour, urban homeless
persons live desperately hard lives with no shelter or social protection.
The courage, fortitude and sheer enterprise that allows the homeless to
survive on the streets is not recognized or channelized. In placing
homeless persons outside the society of 'legitimate urban residents', we
are in effect disenfranchising a large, vulnerable population. Both at the
level of social attitudes and at the level of development policy, changes
are urgently needed.
Shelters for the Urban Homeless: A Handbook for Administrators and

Policymakers contains detailed guidelines for setting up shelters as a
first-stage arrangement. From here, the homeless can take the initial
steps towards a life of dignity, sustain a livelihood for themselves and
ultimately move beyond these shelters into permanent housing
arrangements. This book is intended to assist senior government officials
in establishing and running shelters for homeless people in every city in
compliance with the expectations of the Supreme Court of India and
Government of India's scheme of Shelters for Urban Homeless.
Commissioners of the Supreme Court were installed by an Interim Order

of the Supreme Court in the Writ Petition (Civil) 196 of 2001 with the
power to investigate violations of interim orders related to the case, and
demand redress. In April 2001, the People's Union for Civil Liberties,
Rajasthan had submitted to the Supreme Court a writ petition seeking
enforcement of the right to food. The contention in the petition was that
the right to food is fundamental for the right to life enshrined in Article 21
of the Indian Constitution. Later the Supreme Court held that the right to
“dignified shelters” was a component of the Right to Life.
Cover photograph: Ram Pal Gupta with his youngest daughter and his
wife. Gupta is a balloon seller who lives beneath a bridge next to railway
tracks in Okhla, Delhi. When this photograph was taken in 2011, Gupta
had lived here for seven years.
(Photograph Courtesy Stuart Freedman/ActionAid)
295
Shelters for the
Urban Homeless
Shelters for the
Urban Homeless
Commissioners of the Supreme Court

Shelters for the Urban Homeless
ISBN: 978-81-926907-1-1
First Edition: 2014
© Commissioners of the Supreme Court

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Preface
Even while sustaining cities with their cheap labour, urban

homeless persons live desperately hard lives with no shelter
or social protection. They are described variously as home-
less, houseless, roofless, shelter-less and pavement dwellers.
The Census of India defines ‘houseless population’ as persons
who are not living in ‘census houses’. A ‘census house’ is a
‘structure with roof’. Census enumerators are instructed ‘to
take note of the possible places where houseless populations
are likely to live such as ‘on the roadside, pavements, in hume
pipes, under staircases or in the open, temples, mandaps,
platforms and the like’.1 Problems of reliable estimation and
clear definition of houseless population are encountered in
the surveys conducted for Indian cities.2
The Census in 2001 enumerated 1.94 million homeless
people in India, of whom 1.16 million lived in villages, and
only 0.77 million lived in cities and towns. However, these
numbers are likely to be gross underestimations, as home-
less people tend to be an invisible group especially to officials.
Their ‘invisibility’ renders them a difficult grouping to work
with, although many have lived for years, sometimes even a
generation or two, on the streets and survived. In part, their
invisibility results from the fact that they do not have a formal
address. In addition, they are rendered anonymous because
they usually lack even the elementary markers of citizenship
(of poor people) in India like ration cards and voters’ identity
1
Census of India, 1991: 64
2
Homelessness by Asha Habitat http://www.ashahabitat.com/knowledgebase/pdf/
slums3.pdf
vi Shelters For The Urban Homeless
cards. We estimate that at least one per cent of the popula-

tion of cities is homeless. As over 286 million people now are
inhabitants of the country’s cities,3 this places the estimate of
urban homeless persons in India to be at least around three
million.
In 2009, Centre for Equity Studies undertook a study
for the Planning Commission, which delved into the social,
economic and nutritional situation of urban homeless men,
women, boys and girls in four cities - the metropolises of Delhi
and Chennai, and the cities of Madurai and Patna.4 The study
reveals that life on the streets involves surviving at the edge,
in a physically brutalised and challenging environment, with
denial of elementary public services and assured healthy food.
In addition, there is illegalisation and even criminalisation by
a hostile State of all self-help efforts for shelter and livelihoods
by urban poor residents. There are both grave ruptures - but
also continuities - of bonds with their families and communi-
ties. There may be somewhat better prospects of livelihoods
and earnings than in the countryside, although the study in-
dicates that for urban homeless people, work still tends to re-
main casual, exploitative and without dignity and security.
Almost in every city in India, homeless citizens have re-
mained more or less completely neglected by local and state
governments. Over the past decades, governments have rare-
ly provided to them even minimal essential services necess
ary for basic survival, such as shelters, to ensure that they do
not have to sleep rough under the open sky. Hunger, depriva-
tion and exclusion of homeless persons occur in almost every
city of India. Unclaimed corpses, especially during winter,
bear silent testimony to the saga of homelessness and exclu-
sion. It is a life of destitution, combined with hunger, intense
social devaluation and extreme vulnerability. Although
there was a provision for night shelters in earlier plans of
the G overnment of India, even this provision has lapsed due
to lack of initiative by state and local governments.
3
India: Urban Poverty Report 2009 at http://data.undp.org.in/poverty_reduction/
Factsheet_IUPR_09a.pdfhttp://www.undp.org.in/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=239&Itemid=322
4
Living Rough, Centre for Equity Studies, 2009
Preface vii
Homeless people suffer substantial policy neglect not

just in India, but also globally.5 Various stereotypes are asso-
ciated with the urban homeless all over the world- including
labelling the homeless as criminals, beggars, immoral, para-
sitic and so on. The courage, fortitude and sheer enterprise
that allows them to survive on the streets is not recognized
or channelised. In placing homeless persons outside the
society of ‘legitimate urban residents’, we are in effect dis
enfranchising a large, powerless population. Therefore, both
at the level of social attitudes and at the level of development
policy, changes are urgently needed.
This handbookbook suggests guidelines for state and
municipal governments to give effect to a national pro-
gramme for shelters and other services for the urban home-
less. The program aims to provide permanent homeless shel-
ters and other services for homeless men and women and
their dependent children, in all cities and towns, in a phased
manner. The Supreme Court of India in the writ petition
196/2001 on 27 February 2012 directed the Commissioners
appointed by it, to prepare the draft of this handbookbook
and manual.
In her address to Parliament on 16 March 2012, the
President of India stressed the importance given by the
Government of India to providing basic services to urban
homeless people. She declared that, ‘The needs of the urban
homeless and destitute are of the highest priority for my
Government, and I am happy to announce a new scheme
called the “National Programme for the Urban Homeless”
that would help create a network of composite shelters in
the urban local bodies, with adequate provisions for housing
and food for the destitute’.
This nation-wide effort gives effect to guidelines of the
Supreme Court of India in the writ petition 196/2001.
5
Speak, S. and Tipple, G. (2006) ‘Perceptions, Persecution and Pity: The Limitations
of Interventions for Homelessness in Developing Countries’, International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research, Volume 30.1 March 2006, 172–88
viii Shelters For The Urban Homeless
Directions of Supreme Court
The Commissioners of the Supreme Court6 in the Writ

Petition 196/2001 brought the distressing conditions of peo-
ple living on the streets of Delhi to the notice of the Supreme
Court in their letter dated 13 January 2010. These distress-
ing conditions included denial of the right to food and shelter,
especially in the context of extreme cold weather, which in
turn constituted a threat to their fundamental right to life.
The Supreme Court took urgent notice of this matter and
directed the Government of Delhi to immediately provide
shelter to all those without shelter. Further, it directed that
these shelters must provide basic amenities such as blank
ets, water, and mobile toilets. Government agencies joined
hands to more than double the number of shelters in just two
days. This intervention of the Supreme Court led to the sav-
ing of several precious lives of the most vulnerable citizens of
the capital city.
In their second letter to the Supreme Court dated 25
January 2010, the commissioners informed the Supreme
Court of a similar situation of severe denial of the right to
food and shelter for people living on the streets in all cities
throughout the country. This constituted a grave and persist-
ing threat to their fundamental right to a life with dignity.
On 12 March 2010, they submitted detailed guidelines
for states to establish shelters and other basic rights of the
homeless. Since then, the Supreme Court has been regularly
reviewing the implementation of its directions for the urban
homeless by all state governments. The Delhi High Court has
also been closely monitoring the situation of the homeless in
Delhi. In its most recent hearing, on January 27 2012, the
Supreme Court reiterated that the right to dignified shelters
was a necessary component of the Right to Life under Article
21 of the Constitution of India.
6
NC Saxena and Harsh Mander
Preface ix
The Supreme Court’s interventions have been seminal

in bringing the need to develop rights based policy and pro-
gramme interventions for homeless persons to the notice of
the public and policy agenda for the first time.
However, although the Supreme Court outlined a set of
programmes for shelters and related services, and directed the
state governments to implement these, experience of monitor-
ing the actual progress on the ground has not been very en-
couraging. It highlights low will and capacity to implement the
Supreme Court’s directions. The experience also underlines the
urgent need to develop a national framework and programme
to address the issues of the urban homeless population, now re-
flected in the scheme of Shelters for Urban Homeless (SUH).
Learning from Earlier Government Initiatives for the

Urban Homeless
In 1992, the Ministry of Urban Development launched a small

programme called ‘The Shelter and Sanitation Facilities for
the Footpath Dwellers in Urban Areas’. Its objective was to
‘ameliorate the living condition and shelter problems of the
absolutely shelter-less households till such time as they can
secure affordable housing from ongoing efforts of state hous-
ing agencies.’ This scheme was implemented through the
Housing & Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO)
and covered major urban centres where there was a concen-
tration of homeless persons or footpath dwellers. To start
with, the scheme had the following components:
1. Construction of Community night shelters with water
supply and sanitary facilities
2. Pay and use toilets/baths
3. Renovation of existing structures, such as market
places as ’Night Shelters’
4. Temporary or mobile night shelter of adequate
standards based on the justification provided by
x Shelters For The Urban Homeless
state Governments after considering prevailing local

factors.
In October 2002, the scheme was renamed ‘Night
Shelter for Urban Shelterless’ and was limited to the con-
struction of composite night shelters with toilets and baths
for the urban shelterless. These shelters were in the nature of
dormitories/halls with plain floors used for sleeping at night.
During the daytime, these halls were available for other so-
cial purposes such as health care centres, training centers
for self-employment, adult education etc. This scheme was
finally withdrawn in 2005 because most State Governments
did not utilise the funds allotted to them properly.
It is important to understand why the ‘Night Shelter’
scheme failed. Some of the reasons for this failure were:
1. The scheme was marginal in profile and importance.
2. Though the scheme had some positive elements, it
was not promoted as an ‘entitlement’ of the homeless.
Without such entitlement guarantees and account-
ability mechanisms, the initiation and implementa-
tion of the scheme was left to the state and municipal
bodies or agencies designated by state governments,
which tended not to give priority to such a programme.
3. The scheme was managed by HUDCO, which, under
the supervision of Ministry of Urban Development,
was responsible for appraisal, financing and moni-
toring of the scheme. The Government of India in a
sense, did not directly own it.
4. The scheme required taking soft loans from HUDCO,
which was not a viable design, because a programme
for the most marginalised cannot be expected to raise
resources internally to enable repayment. There were
efforts to make shops, for instance, in the same complex
as shelters. In fact, in most cases, over time the shelters
were overtaken by enterprises for commercial use.
5. It was a demand driven programme, based on the de-
mand from local city and state governments, which
Preface xi
rarely came because of the invisibility, powerlessness

and stigma that surrounds urban homeless persons.
6. The scheme also did not have strong programme link-
ages with other elements – the services in the shel-
ters, food and other entitlements. It also lacked clear
guidelines for operating on the ground
7. It had extremely marginal allocations, sometimes as
low as one crore rupees a year for the entire country!
A total of just eight crore rupees were used for 114
projects throughout the country with 17,000 beds dur-
ing the period of the scheme.7
8. There was very little detailing of the design and op-
eration of shelters.
It is hoped that the current effort will avoid the pitfalls
of the earlier scheme. There are some positive indications
in this direction as the new scheme is mandated under the
directions of the Supreme Court. The scheme does not de-
pend on demands from local, city and state governments.
Instead, it is now a legal obligation of these governments
to implement this basic programme for the most vulnerable
citizens of the cities, to protect their fundamental right to
life with dignity. The new scheme will be a centrally sponsor
ed programme, adequately resourced, with clear details of
vision and design. It is based not on loans, but direct public
expenditures. It is located within not just the Constitutional
right to life, but as a whole set of citizenship rights – to
food, identity, healthcare, education and housing. It also en
visages shelters as a first step to help homeless people move
into permanent housing.
Permanent Shelters for Urban Homeless People
An urban homeless shelter may be understood as a safe,

decent, and secure covered space, which offers to urban
7
People Without a Nation – The Destitute People, a study done by Ashray Adhikar
Abhiyan and ActionAid India, 2004
xii Shelters For The Urban Homeless
homeless persons who wish to access it, protection from the

elements, space to rest and store their belongings, access to
drinking and bathing water, sanitation and allied facilities,
and security and safety.
Services for the urban homeless are woefully inadequate
in all Indian cities. For instance, prior to Supreme Court’s
interventions, Lucknow had only one and Chennai only two
permanent shelters. In the cities of Patna and Jaipur, there
were only a few temporary shelters. Mysore had only one
shelter. There were no shelters in Mumbai, Ranchi, Kolkata,
and Ahmedabad, among many other cities (Eighth Report of
the Commissioners).
Under the guidelines of the Supreme Court, all state
and local governments are now legally bound to build digni-
fied permanent shelters for the urban homeless in sufficient
numbers and with appropriate facilities, to ensure fulfilment
of their rights to life and shelter.
Following up on the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s directives,
the Commissioners of Supreme Court inputted into HUPAs
efforts to develop a national programme for urban homeless.
A scheme of ‘Shelters for Urban Homeless’ (SUH) was been
launched in September 2013, and operational guidelines is-
sued for it under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission in
December 2013.
Whereas winter is a period of the severest crisis for
homeless people, in that it is directly life threatening, all sea-
sons also pose a threat to homeless people. Homeless people
are also subjected to continuous violence and abuse. Living
in the open, with no privacy or protection, is a gross denial
of the fundamental right to a life with dignity. It is to defend
and uphold their right to a life with dignity, and their rights
to food and shelter that sufficient numbers of permanent
shelters are required in all cities, in all seasons.
Location of these shelters close to the areas where
the poorest congregate–railway stations, bus depots, termi-
nals, markets, wholesale mandis, etc., is of critical impor-
tance. Proximity of permanent shelters to places of work/
Preface xiii
congregation of homeless persons enables them to use and

access the services and facilities that a shelter offers. Many
occupants of shelters are engaged in work during the nights
(e.g. as head-loaders), and thus need shelters to sleep in, dur-
ing the day. Casual workers also often do not get employment
on a daily basis, and so again often need shelters during the
days and not just at night. Therefore, entry to the shelters
should be open to the homeless all through the day.
This programme must recognize and respect the au-
tonomy and independence of homeless persons and make
clear that all shelters are voluntary, and persons staying in
them cannot be treated as being in custody; nor can they be
forced into shelters. If the shelters really meet their needs
in terms of location, amenities, services and treatment, they
will voluntarily seek entry into shelters. In many cities, anti-
beggary laws are misused to criminalize homeless persons.
This must halt. Most homeless persons work and do not beg,
and even those who do beg, should not be treated as offend-
ers, but as persons to whom the state must extend social pro-
tection on priority. It needs to be remembered that custodial
beggars’ homes are not homeless shelters.
The destitute population among the homeless - includ-
ing those who survive by begging, casual sex work, the men-
tally ill, the elderly, women headed households, persons with
disabilities and street children - are often the most invisible,
as they hesitate to seek the assistance of hostile officials or
police, whom they typically distrust. On account of their per-
ceived illegal existence and invisibility, various social secu-
rity, food, education and healthcare schemes of the govern-
ment for the economically weaker sections and the socially
disadvantaged groups, still elude homeless persons,.
In addition, public institutions should be encouraged to
think of applying innovative approaches to serve the most mar-
ginalised. For instance, all major public hospitals could create
sufficient and appropriately designed shelters to house families
of poor resident patients. Community health departments of all
these hospitals should also be organised to provide both outreach
and inpatient services to homeless populations.
xiv Shelters For The Urban Homeless
Permanent shelters, which are established in every

city, should be designed not merely to cater to needs of work-
ing men, who form the bulk of urban homeless people. They
should also house the most vulnerable groups within the
homeless populations, such as (a) single women and their
dependent minor children, (b) the aged, (c) the infirm, (d)
the disabled and (e) the mentally challenged. There should
also be recovery shelters for recuperating homeless and their
families. Actual break-up should depend on local particular
ities, and size of the city, and total numbers of shelters.
No child should be turned away from shelters, more so
if the child accompanies a homeless parent. Minor children
should not be separated from their parent/s. If the child has
no adult carer, a separate, protected space may be created
for him or her. Taking such a step is especially necessary for
boys without adult protection in men’s shelters, as well as for
other older children. One appropriate form of intervention is
to have residential schools for deprived urban children, cre-
ated under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).
Shelters and a Revolving Door towards a Housing

Continuum
Any programme for the urban homeless must envisage

homeless shelters as a necessary first step for homeless per-
sons to escape the disaster-like situation in which they find
themselves. However, homeless shelters should not be their
final destination. The desired solution needs to be decent,
affordable social housing. A shelter is only the first point of
intervention and cannot replace the right to housing for all.
Community shelters are an outcome of the severe backlog
of economically weaker and low-income housing, severely
neglected by most state governments as well as the central
government to date. Beyond the immediate intervention
of shelters, a robust housing policy for all (like the Kerala
Housing Policy) is a key requirement. There is also a need to
address the denial of other rights of the homeless, including
their right to food, healthcare, education and employment.
Preface xv
Therefore, any scheme should focus on urban home-

less shelters, only as a specific starting element of an over-
all programme. The programme should have a four pronged
approach in the framework of a housing rights continuum in
which working homeless people transit from homeless shel-
ters to owning houses and dwelling units.
1. Permanent community shelters with amenities and
facilities as outlined in a dedicated scheme
2. Working women’s and men’s hostels for single work-
ing men and women, and labour transit camps for
construction workers
3. Rental accommodation of dwelling units
4. Ownership of dwelling units
For the most vulnerable segments of homeless per-
sons, such as old persons without care and mentally ill and
challenged persons, there may be a need for long term social
protection institutions, but even these should be open and
voluntary, and with appropriate services.
Objectives of the Handbook
In order to comply with Supreme Court directions and the

Government of India’s scheme of Shelters for Urban Homeless
(SUH), many state governments felt they needed detailed
guidelines on how to plan, establish and run shelters for home-
less persons in their cities.
The National Advisor and the Commissioners of the
Supreme Court8 have therefore developed this guide for plan-
ning the location and type of homeless shelters, as well as the
management and services that should be provided therein by
governments.
8
Dr. N. C. Saxena and Harsh Mander were appointed as the Commissioner and
Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court. Sandeep Chachra was appointed as the
National Advisor, Urban Homeless by the Commissioners of the Supreme Court. The
Commissioners were in charge of monitoring the food and employment related schemes
in the county. The Commissioners brought to the notice of the Supreme Court in January
xvi Shelters For The Urban Homeless
The objectives of this handbook are to suggest guide-

lines to:
1. ensure availability and access by the urban homeless
population to permanent 24 hour shelters, in order to
address their problems of homelessness
2. create special homeless shelters for specially vulnera-
ble segments of the urban homeless like single women
and their dependents, the aged, disabled, mentally ill,
and recovering gravely ill
3. formulate structures and frameworks for engagement
for development, implementation and monitoring of
shelters by state and civil society organisations
4. create convergence with other basic social services
and government programmes including food and
nutrition, health, social security etc., and ultimately
with affordable housing.
This book intends to provide basic guidelines to
different state and municipal governments in India for
delivering services, beginning with well-equipped per-
manent shelters for the urban homeless. It attempts to
fill the gap that exists because the urban homeless have
received scant attention in government policies and pro-
grammes so far (which speaks volumes about the denial
of their right to a life with dignity). It suggests ways to se-
cure for them their right to dignity, including access to a
living space, clean drinking water and food and sanitation
facilities. These are bare minimum standards, which have
to be followed up by a right to permanent housing, educa-
tion, livelihood, health etc.
It contains detailed guidelines for setting up shelters
for the homeless as a first-stage arrangement. From here,
they can take the initial steps towards a life of dignity, sus-
tain a livelihood for themselves and ultimately move beyond
these shelters into permanent housing arrangements.
2010 that recurrent deaths were occurring in Delhi not because people are starving but
also because they are homeless. This led to the inclusion of the issue of Homeless
shelters as a part of the already ongoing Right to Food case (Writ Petition 196 of 2001).
Preface xvii
This book is intended to assist senior government off

icials in establishing and running shelters for homeless peo-
ple in every city in compliance with the expectations of the
Supreme Court of India. This is a work in progress, and we
hope to update and improve this handbookbook based on
efforts by various state governments, supported by leading
civil society organisations.
Sandeep Chachra
National Advisor
to the Commissioners of the Supreme Court
in WR196/2001
Harsh Mander
Special Commissioner of the Supreme Court
in WR 196/2001
Delhi
June 2014
Acknowledgements
The writing team is grateful for the guidance of the

Commissioner of the Supreme Court Dr NC Saxena in
this effort. The team effort draws on the experiences of,
and contributions from Biraj Patnaik, Kavita Srivastava,
Colin Gonsalves, Sejal Dand, Amod Kumar, Amita Joseph,
Arundhati Dhuru, Anuradha Talwar, Vandana Prasad, K
Anuradha, VCHS Bahadur, Anwar ul Haq, Pritha Chatterjee,
Shashank Shukla, Asghar Mohammed, Ashok Khandelwal,
Reshmi Ganguly, Vanessa Peter, Mr. C. Annadurai, Indu
Prakash Singh, Clifton Rosario, Surajit Neogi, Pallavi
Nayek, Kanchan Gandhi, Ashwin Parulkar, Jeevika Shiv
and Sidney Carvalho.
Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgements
Homelessness in Indian Cities 1
Institutional Arrangements for Shelters and 9

Allied Services
Planning for Shelters in the City I: 21

Rapid Mapping of Homeless Clusters
and Available Resources
Planning for Shelters in the City II: 31

Post Mapping Implementation Planning
Complementary Services, Entitlements and 57

Housing Continuum
Annexure 65
Chapter 1
Homelessness in Indian
Cities
Introduction
Urban homeless people are invisible in public policy, even

though policy makers can see every them every single day,
as the policy makers drive on city streets. The homeless live
in our cities virtually as non-citizens. Many die un-mourned
in the bitter winter cold, the merciless summer heat, or in
the monsoon deluge. Life for them is an unremitting struggle
against hunger, loneliness and sickness.
A homeless woman said poignantly that her life’s great-
est wish was for an uninterrupted night’s sleep: without the
noise of traffic, the glare of street lights, the perils of sexual
and physical assaults and the brutality of the police.1 It is a
dream that few among the homeless can realise.
The bitter winter cold often proves to be a messenger
of death.2 Every bout of severe cold leaves behind corpses of
homeless people. However, research by the Commissioners’
office revealed that even more people die on Delhi’s streets
in the summer heat and monsoons than those who are de-
feated by Delhi’s harsh winters.3 The onus lies entirely on the
government in building a comprehensive policy to support
1
Mander, Harsh (2003) ‘Surviving the Streets’, Frontline 20 (10)
2
Zaidi, Annie. (2005) ‘Homeless in Delhi’, Frontline 22(01).
3
Letter dated 13th January 2010 from the Commissioners to the Supreme Court stating
the conditions of homeless in Delhi.
2 Shelters For The Urban Homeless
the city’s most marginalised residents, but across the nation,

governance amnesia for this segment of most vulnerable citi-
zens has been acute.
A large majority of homeless people sleep on pavements
and sidewalks, under ledges of shops and homes, in market
corridors, at bus stands and railways stations, and outside
places of worship, often in danger of being run over by rash
and drunken drivers. In some cities, there seems to be a clear
preference among single women to live in shrines, families on
pavements and children in bus stands and railway stations.4
Urban poverty, even though starkly visible to the makers
of policy, has engaged governments in India far less than
rural poverty, both in terms of the range of interventions and
the scale of financial outlays. Despite evidence of burgeoning
urban populations with stubbornly high levels of both absolute
and relative poverty, it remains, for the most part, an area of
significant and persistent neglect in public policy.
At the bottom of the heap are the urban homeless. The
relationship between homeless persons and the state is one
of extreme mutual acrimony and distrust. State authorities
are distrustful of homeless people as being parasitical, lazy,
unhygienic, illegal and largely criminal. Homeless people re-
turn the compliment by regarding the government as implac-
ably uncaring, hostile, corrupt and neglectful.5
The homeless survive without resisting periodic on-
slaughts, as they feel profoundly powerless and have nowhere
else to go. There is an un-stated de facto hierarchy of citi-
zenship. The legitimate citizens of the city who are deemed
to deserve both protection and services from the State are
those who live in homes and settled orderly colonies. Those
who are too impoverished to afford these, are lesser citizens,
with a downward hierarchy of legitimacy - from residents of
4
These choices are probably linked to preferred occupational choices and
considerations of safety. Mander, Harsh (2007), Living Rough - Surviving City Streets,
Report of the Homeless Study done in Delhi, Chennai, Patna and Madurai, Centre for
Equity Studies
5
Ibid
authorised slums, to those that are unauthorised, to those

finally who are at the bottom of the heap, the wretched mass
of the cities’ homeless. To them, the State owes nothing, ex-
cept to drive them away from the city to which they are seen
to have no rights to whatsoever.
This has begun to change only recently, more than
60 years after Independence, under the watchful eye of the
Supreme Court of India. After a series of deaths of homeless
persons on Delhi’s streets in the winter of 2009-10, the high-
est court of our land stepped in to enforce the rights of these
most marginalized persons to a life with dignity.
Definition of Homeless Persons
For the purpose of interventions of the government, the follow

ing are understood to be ‘homeless’:
Persons who do not have a house, either self-owned or rented,
but instead
• live and sleep at pavements, parks, railway stations,
bus stations, places of worship, outside shops and fac-
tories, at constructions sites, under bridges, in Hume
pipes and other places under the open sky or places
unfit for human habitation
• spend their nights and/or days at shelters, transit
homes, short stay homes, beggars’ homes and child
ren’s homes
• live in temporary structures with or without walls
under plastic sheets or thatch roofs on pavements,
parks, nallah beds and other common spaces. Within
this group, there are multiple degrees of vulnerability.
For instance, there are single women, the infirm and
old, the disabled and persons who have special needs
such as floating migrant populations unable to find
labour or food, those involved in substance abuse and
patients suffering from debilitating diseases.
Living Rough
Despite their growing numbers and intense and comprehen-

sive deprivations in every city in India, homeless citizens
have remained almost completely neglected by local and
state governments. Over the past decades, governments have
rarely provided to homeless even minimal essential services
such as shelters, for their basic survival.
A study was recently undertaken for the Planning
Commission of India,6 to look into the social, economic and
nutritional situation of urban homeless men, women, boys
and girls in four cities, Delhi, Chennai, Madurai and Patna.
From this study, it is evident that the lived experience of
urban poverty, and even more so of urban homelessness,
differs in many significant ways from that of rural poverty.
Urban living may allow better prospects for livelihood and
earning (although the study indicates that for urban home-
less people work still tends to remain casual, exploitative
and without dignity and security) for the homeless. However,
life on the streets usually involves surviving in a physically
brutalised and challenging environment, with denial of even
elementary public services and assured healthy food. In add
ition, there is an illegalisation and even criminalisation by a
hostile State of all self-help efforts for shelter and livelihoods
by poor homeless residents.
Earlier studies7 in Lucknow, Delhi and Chennai also
point to the near complete invisibility of homeless persons in
the development and poverty alleviation programmes, and
their continued stigmatization and marginalization.
For their part, homeless families are wary of the
government and the middle classes, particularly because
both perceive homeless people of any age and gender to be
vaguely dangerous and intractably on the wrong side of the
6
Ibid
7
Study Reports on Homeless of ActionAid India. These include The Capital’s
Homeless (2001), Basare Ki Kahani — Story of a Shelter (2002), Towards Reclaiming
Our Humanness (2003), Art of Partnership: Networking for the Rights of Homeless
(2004) and People Without a Nation (2005)
law. Homeless people are taken as illegal elements, to be

weaned out of the city by police and municipal authorities,
as trespassers, encroachers and potential petty criminals.
Because of this, police brutality and harassment is common
among homeless people. Worse still, vagrants, mentally ill
itinerants, ‘illegal’ squatters, and pavement dwellers are all
considered ‘guilty’ of violating penal statutes whose entire
enforcement is at the mercy of the police and the junior mag-
istracy. In a study, S. Murlidhar (then a Supreme Court law-
yer and civil rights activist, now a judge of the Delhi High
Court) observed:
Criminalising the homeless is a serious problem; wan-
dering people of a wide variety can be defined as beg-
gars and powers are given to the police to deal with
such persons. Squatting on the pavement is nuisance
under the Municipal laws. Creation of nuisance can be
penalised.8
Across cities, large numbers of homeless people are

routinely rounded up by the police and put into preventive
detention, beggars’ homes, or are just made to shift out from
the places they have made their home. This is usually done to
fulfil targets of ‘preventive detention’ under Sections 109 and
151 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. Homeless people
then languish for long periods in jail or beggars’ homes, be-
cause they are too poor, asset less and lacking in access to
legal aid and literacy to secure bail. However, rather than
brutalising them, it is possible to include the homeless in citi-
zen efforts to safeguard urban areas. They are familiar with
the streets they live in, and could identify any strangers or
strange objects placed there and inform the police.
Other than their acute need for shelter, homeless per-
sons’ daily efforts for survival are hindered at every step by
the imposed ‘illegality’ of their existence. At the heart of the
problem are existing laws and policies for regulating urban
land and housing rights, which systematically exclude the
8
Murlidhar. S. (1991). ‘Adequate Housing: From a Basic Need to a Fundamental
Right’ (Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Law,
University of Nagpur)
poor from building or acquiring legal shelter and exercising

their ‘rights to shelter’. Behind these laws are attitudes that
simply deny the fact it is their labour which has built our cit-
ies, runs and sustains them.
In the case of homeless people, two basic documents
that are widely perceived as proof of citizenship – the ration
card and voter’s card - are not available to the overwhelm-
ing majority. The reason often cited by authorities is that
they lack a permanent address. They mostly also lack birth
certificates. Homeless people are therefore denied not only
citizenship but also participation in decision making and op-
portunities for secure tenure and housing rights, credit, edu-
cation, health care, water and sanitation and a host of other
basic services.
Not having any proof of identification and address
means not being able to claim Below Poverty Line (BPL) or
Antyodaya cards and the other related food schemes. Only
one-fifth of the respondents in the Centre for Equity Studies
(CES) study9 possessed ration cards. The rest had either
never been issued one, or had it assigned to their village ad-
dress, which could not be used once they migrated. Others
had lost them in the transition from their native houses. Still
others, who earlier lived in urban slums, found their cards
invalidated or lost once their slums were demolished, often
without prior notice. In any case, the mere possession of a
ration card does not assure the homeless any food security.
They are often discriminated against at PDS fair price shops.
Even if a majority of the homeless are aware of the need for
ration cards and voter identification cards, most are rarely
able to possess these basic government documents, due to
their powelessness.
Other social assistance programmes such as old age
pensions, NFBS (death insurance) and NMBS (maternity
benefit) are simply out of the reach of the urban poor. This
is either due to their contested citizenship because of lack of
permanent address, or due to the lack of political will and
9
Living Rough, Centre for Equity Studies, 2009
administrative rigour by the government in delivering the

benefits to the homeless. In Delhi, for example, no aged,
homeless, urban poor person was found to have accessed rice
under the Annapurna scheme. In Chennai, only a handful
of old homeless people availed of the old age pension from
the Government. Others have tried a great deal and ended
up frustrated when asked for bribes to avail of their rightful
entitlements. Most have given up.10
In these circumstances, addressing the question of
urban homelessness requires an urgent change both at the
level of attitude and at the level of development policies and
programmes. Actions to change attitudes and develop strong
welfare policies might begin with increasing the understand-
ing of the realities of life on the streets, developing policies
and programmes with the agency of homeless persons, and
building on the cumulative policy and programming experi-
ences globally, particularly in the southern world. Such a
trajectory also needs to be enabled by a strong initial pro-
gramming framework that will allow for the first steps con-
cerning inclusion to be undertaken.
10
Ibid
Chapter 2
Institutional Arrangements
for Shelters and Allied
Services
Based on the Fundamental Right to Life under Article 21 of
the Constitution, the recent interventions of Supreme Court
of India provide a legal framework for new policy architect
ure for the urban homeless people of India.
The Commissioners of the Supreme Court, in the writ
petition 196/2001, brought the appalling conditions of people
living on the streets in Delhi to the notice of the Supreme
Court in their letter dated 13 January 2010. In this letter,
they indicated a denial to the homeless people, of their right
to food and shelter, especially in the context of extreme cold
weather, which constituted a threat to their fundamental
right to life. The Supreme Court Justices, Dalbir Bhandari
and K.S. Radhakrishnan took urgent notice of this matter
and directed the Government of Delhi to immediately provide
shelter to all those who were deprived of them. At the same
time, the Delhi High Court also took up the issue suo moto.
The MCD was directed to draw up a plan to construct 140 per-
manent shelters for the homeless across Delhi. Further, the
Court directed that these shelters must provide basic ameni-
ties such as blankets, water and mobile toilets.
Government agencies joined hands and more than
doubled the number of shelters in Delhi in the span of two
days. The Supreme Court further directed that the shelters
be provided basic amenities. This major intervention by
the Supreme Court and its implementation by Government
agencies led to the saving of many precious lives of the most

vulnerable citizens of Delhi, who were exposed to the deadly
winter cold.
On 25 January 2010, the Commissioners wrote a sec-
ond letter to the Supreme Court, stating that shelters must
be equipped with basic services compatible with human dig-
nity. They quoted a study on the quality of the existing shel-
ters for the homeless in Delhi, which had been conducted by
the Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) on the request of
the Commissioners .
The TISS study found that most existing shelters were
running in buildings constructed for other purposes such as
marriage halls, community halls etc., and therefore were not
designed to meet the needs of a homeless shelter. While in
three shelters, there were no toilet facilities, even in the rest
(14 shelters), the toilets were not clean and there was not
enough water. There were no clean beddings in any of the
shelters as the contract for beddings had not been finalised
by the government. Almost half the centres did not have the
facility for adequate and clean drinking water. Other facili-
ties like lockers, were not available in any of the centres. It
must be remembered that lockers are of vital importance for
the urban poor, because they have no place in the city to store
their belongings and savings, and literally have to live with
only the clothes on their backs. This pushes them into deeper
vulnerability, a vicious cycle of poverty, dispossession and
even starvation. The quality of the few shelters that existed
in Delhi was found to be very poor, with minimal facilities,
which did not meet the requirements of the homeless. This
was one of the main reasons for the underutilisation of the
existing shelters.
The Commissioners stated that ‘Some shelters are sub-
human, barely better than being on the streets. Permanent
shelters must be provided for the homeless with minimum
facilities such as toilets, drinking water, bedding, lockers,
cleaning facilities etc. being available’. Further, the rules in
the shelters must be flexible to suit the requirements of the
homeless people, such as being open all night and all day
Institutional Arrangements for Shelters and Allied Services 11
to facilitate use by homeless citizens who have night jobs.

The idea of a ‘night shelter’ or rain basera thus evolved in
recognition of the needs of homeless citizen workers into a 24
hour, all year shelter. The Commissioners reiterated in this
letter that severe malnutrition and hunger were the under-
lying causes making people susceptible to extreme weather
conditions.
They added that these concerns regarding the wellbeing
of homeless people in Delhi were equally relevant to people
living on the streets in other cities in the country, several of
whom were at that time also reeling under severe cold condi-
tions. The Commissioners observed that the response of the
governments in all Indian cities to the needs of homeless peo-
ple was woefully inadequate. For instance, while there were
about 20,000 homeless people in Lucknow, the city had only
eight temporary shelters and one permanent shelter. There
were no official shelters in Mumbai or Patna (or incidentally
in many other cities including Hyderabad and Chennai).
On 12 March 2010, the Commissioners submitted de-
tailed guidelines for states to establish shelters and other
basic rights of the homeless. In this third letter, they further
wrote to the Supreme Court:
Whereas winter is a period of severest crisis for
homeless people, in that it is directly life-threatening,
all seasons pose threats to homeless people, especially
the rainfall. Homeless people are subject to continuous
violence and abuse. Living in the open with no privacy
or protection for even for women and children, is a
gross denial of the right to live with dignity. It is for
this reason that the Commissioners are convinced that
similar directions as were passed for Delhi to deal with
winter need to be passed for the entire country for all
seasons, for sufficient numbers of permanent shelters,
to defend and uphold the right to life with dignity, and
the rights to food and shelter of all urban homeless
men, women and children across the country.
Many occupants of shelters are engaged in work during

the nights (e.g. head-loaders), and thus need shelters
to sleep during the day. Casual workers also often do
not get employment on a daily basis, and therefore

again often need shelters during the days and not just
at night. Therefore, entry to the shelters should be
open to homeless all through the day and night.
The shelter should at minimum provide for basic

facilities such as beds and bedding, toilets, potable
drinking water, lockers, first aid, primary health,
de-addiction and recreation facilities.... The strength
per shelter should be a minimum of 100 occupants,
because the services will not be viable and optimal
with smaller populations. Locations should be close to
homeless concentrations and work sites. Some shelters
can be established by redeploying existing unused
or under-utilised buildings. Others may require new
buildings which can be permanent structures or in
porta cabin type low cost temporary structures. As
stated earlier, the shelters should be permanent,
running throughout the year; and open round the
clock, because many homeless persons find work in
the nights. The minimum space provided per person
in each of these shelters should be 3.5 square metres,
a standard which we draw from the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees1 for temporary shelters
for refugees.
The Commissioners therefore sought a direction to all

State Governments/Union Territories in India, ‘to build and
run 24 hour, year round shelters for urban homeless peo-
ple, with adequate and appropriate facilities. The shelters
must be in sufficient numbers to meet the need, in the ratio
of at least one per lakh of population, in every major urban
centre (on lines of the ratio prescribed by the Delhi Master
Plan). As explained, all shelters for homeless people should
be functional all through the year and not as a seasonal facil-
ity only during the winters’. They added that whereas over
time these services need to be provided in all urban areas,
in the first phase it ‘should be mandatory for cities with a
population of above one million, and other cities and towns
identified by the Government of India to be of special social,
historical, tourist or political importance.
1
Handbook for Emergencies 3e, UNHCR, 2007, p64
Sixty-two such cities were identified under the

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
(JnNURM). Central and state governments directed, as a
minimum, to provide permanent 24 hour homeless shelters
in these 62 cities in the first phase within a period of one year
from the order. These shelters should be in the minimum
ratio of a shelter with the capacity to house 100 persons for
every lakh of population. These were to be operational latest
by March 31, 2011.
The Supreme Court concurred and issued a notice to
all state governments to respond about facilities that they
were providing to the urban homeless. As a result, the mat-
ter of providing services to the homeless was taken up at the
highest levels of the administration by various state govern-
ments for the first time. The Supreme Court passed similar
directions asking the state governments and those of union
territories to defend and uphold the right to life with dignity,
and the rights to food and shelter, of all urban homeless men,
women and children across the country.
The interventions of the Supreme Court upheld, in
principle, the right to life with dignity of this most vulnera-
ble population, with binding instructions to all state govern
ments to provide fully equipped shelters for the homeless in
the ratio of at least one per one lakh urban population. Since
then, the Supreme Court has been regularly reviewing the
implementation of its directions for the urban homeless by
state governments.
Ahead of each hearing, the Supreme Court Commi
ssioners’ office, sometimes on its own based on review of pro-
gress on the ground, and sometimes through the instrument
of joint inspection, has been regularly submitting reports to
the Supreme Court to make it cognisant of the developments
on the ground in different cities. The Supreme Court inter-
ventions have been seminal in terms of highlighting the need
to develop rights-based policy and programme interventions
for urban homeless people in India.
Hence, the Supreme Court has outlined a set of pro-
grammes for the construction of shelters and services and
directed the state governments to implement them. However,

there is very little administrative experience and expertise
among state and municipal governments about the needs of
this specific population. Thus, there is an urgent need for
the development of a framework, guidelines and operational
programming steps, to address the issues of the urban home-
less population. The Supreme Court articulated this need
on 27 Feb 2012. While reviewing the progress of the case,
the Supreme Court noted that in view of the slow progress
of implementation and follow-up in all states, the Court
Commissioners, based on their experience, and in consulta-
tion with the states, should draw up a programme framework
and a clear set of guidelines for the rapid implementation of
Supreme Court directions.
Further, in the same order of February 27, 2012, the
Supreme Court made a clear link between the right to shel-
ter and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This article
lists the ‘Right to Protection of Life and Personal Liberty’
as one of the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. Hence,
no person should die because of not being able to access a
shelter. The notion of ‘life’ and ‘liberty’ has a broad mean-
ing under the Article 21. The word life does not only merely
mean ‘animal existence’ but also living with ‘human dignity’.
In many rulings, the Supreme Court has clarified that the
right to life includes the right to live with human dignity,
which means that bare necessities of life such as adequate
nutrition, clothing and shelter over head, all are included
within the provisions of Article 21 (Order dated 23 January
2012 and 27 February 2012). The Supreme Court ordered on
27 February 2012, ‘It must be the endeavour of each State to
ensure that in compliance of Article 21, the life of homeless
people must be properly protected and preserved.’
A brief summary of the directions of the Supreme Court
in the writ petition 196/2001 is given in the Annexure to this
accompanimentbook.
In the remaining part of the book, we will lay down
some guidelines on how to implement the directives of the
Supreme Court. These will include guidelines on institutional
arrangements for shelters and allied services, mapping of

homeless clusters and available resources, post-mapping im-
plementation planning, as well as complementary services,
individual entitlements and the housing continuum.
Institutional Arrangements for Shelters and Allied

Services
Planning for permanent shelters and allied services for the

urban homeless at the national, state and city levels re-
quires coordination with several line ministries and depart-
ments, with urban local bodies, as well as with various social
work, health and town planning professionals, homeless col-
lectives, unorganised worker unions and various civil society
organisations. Innovative institutional arrangements to en-
able such wide convergence and coordination do not exist
at present, and need to be created. This section suggests
some ways in which these institutions may be created at
various levels, to be able to plan, implement and monitor
programmes for shelters and other services for urban home-
less persons.
Throughout this book, where reference is made to state
governments, this includes governments of union territories,
even when this is not explicitly mentioned.
Coordination and Convergence for Urban Homeless

in Central and State Governments
At the central level, there is a need to authorise the Ministry

of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) and
under it the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM),
to provide overall leadership to the programme nationally.
Technical support could be sought from Housing & Urban
Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) and where needed,
from selected schools of architecture and social work, which
are of national reach and reputation.
At the state level, the State/Urban Local Body (ULB)

would establish the shelters and operate them directly or
through agencies identified by them. The state government
should encourage their convergence and dovetailing with
similar programmes for homeless that are being carried for-
ward by the State/ ULB.
At the state level, the State Urban Livelihoods Mission,
under the NULM will be the nodal body. It should have rep-
resentation from officials as well as non-officials such as ex-
perts from schools of social work, planning and architecture,
homeless collectives, collectives of unorganised workers such
as head-loaders and construction workers, youth and women
organisations, and NGOs with expertise in working with
homeless populations.
For the project proposals for shelters, a Project
Committee (Project Sanction Committee) should be con-
stituted at the state level under the chairpersonship of
Principal Secretary/Secretary in charge of NULM and the
representatives of concerned departments in the state. The
Project Sanction Committee should consider and approve
projects under this scheme. A representative of the Ministry
of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation should also be a
member of this Committee.
The state governments should develop clear guidelines
and process flows to promote participatory management sys-
tems at the level of the overall city planning and implemen-
tation, and for management of each shelter.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Central and State

Government and Urban Local Body
The following are the roles and responsibilities of the centre

and states with respect to the scheme of Shelters for Urban
Homeless:
1. The Central Government would take the larger respon-
sibility in provisioning for capital costs, for example
of construction or costs for refurbishment/ improve-

ment to existing infrastructure and buildings. The
Government of India would fund seventy-five per cent
of the cost of construction or that of refurbishment/
augmentation where existing infrastructure/public
buildings are to be used. The remaining twenty- five
per cent would be the contribution of state govern-
ment. In case of special category states (Arunachal
Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
Nagaland, Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal
Pradesh and Uttarakhand), the Centre State contri-
bution ratio would be 90-to-10. In case funds are pro-
vided by other non-governmental sources, the ratio
of centre to state resourcing would be still 75-to-25
or 90-to-10, as the case may be. Any cost escalations
beyond the proposed date of completion (at the time of
project sanction) would be borne by state government/
urban local body.
2. The State Government and concerned local authori-
ties should provide existing infrastructure and un-
used buildings to be refurbished and redeployed as
permanent shelters, where these are available. For
refurbishment of existing structures, necessary ap-
provals, lease agreements, ownership deed and such
necessary documents will need to be obtained by the
state governments for project financing approvals.
3. Where such existing buildings and infrastructure are
unavailable, land will need to be set aside for the re-
quired permanent shelters. All land for the purposes
of construction of shelters will be provided and pro-
visioned for by the state or local governments/Urban
Local Body (ULB). For this purpose, the state govern-
ments/ULBs must obtain the necessary clearances
and approvals prior to preparation of the proposal as
cost of land acquisition is not eligible for central fund-
ing. For construction of new shelters, central PWD
rates applicable to the Region/State Schedule of Rates
(SOR) where construction is proposed, at the time of
construction, will be used.
4. The costs for running the shelter – operational and

management costs will also be provided by the cen-
tral government in the same ratio (as the construc-
tion costs), for the first five years from the date of the
start of the project. Central government will provide
seventy-five per cent of the operational and manage-
ment costs (or ninety per cent in case of special cat-
egory states) and state governments/local bodies are
expected to contribute twenty-five per cent (or ten per
cent in case of special category states).
5. A total of Rs. 6, 00, 000/- is permissible as operation
and maintenance costs per shelter housing 50 home-
less persons. These expenditures would be limited
to annual maintenance cost (including expenses for
electricity and other maintenance costs), annual ser-
vicing cost (including cost of upkeep, replenishment of
bedding, kitchen and other materials), food cost (re-
stricted to ten per cent of the residents who are old/
infirm and cannot pay) and staff salaries (a manager
and three caretakers in eight hour shifts). Additional
funding requirements may be borne by the State/
ULBs, or provided from other sources by the state.
6. Shelter proposals must come from the ULB that initi-
ates the shelter. Each shelter proposal (for approval
and finalisation) should also contain the shelter man-
agement mechanism including details of the staff, con-
stitution, roles and responsibility of SMC, facilities/
amenities being provided at the shelter, operational
mechanism, code of conduct for the staff and residents,
responsibilities of the shelter inmates, delegation of
power to manage/operate the shelter, etc.
7. Each shelter proposal developed by the ULB for the
construction and management of shelters would need
to spell out the Proposed Date of Completion (PDC)
together with all timelines and costing details. A
Detailed Project Report (DPR) with all administrative
and regulatory clearances should accompany propos-
als. The project should also clearly state the process to
be adopted for sustaining the shelter after five years

of operation with indicative source of funding support
for operation and management of the shelter. In this
proposal, the mechanism for handing over assets cre-
ated should be clearly delineated before submission
by the ULB.
8. The administration and running of the shelters
should be the responsibility of the state governments
or ULBs, as decided by respective state governments.
Setting up City Level Management Systems
In every city, the state government should constitute a

City Level Empowered Committee (CLEC), or Executive
Committee (EC) for this programme. Under the National/
State Urban Livelihoods Mission, this committee should
look after the planning and overseeing of facilities. It should
be run with the participation of municipal authorities,
elected representatives, line departments, and non-officials
such as experts from local institutions of social work, social
sciences, planning and architecture where they exist, home-
less collectives, collectives of unorganised workers such as
head-loaders and construction workers, youth and women’s
organisations and NGOs with expertise of working with
homeless populations.
Such CLECs would be crucial in overall planning, co-
ordination and advance of the programme for urban shelters
in any city. They would ensure that the efforts of respond-
ing to the shelter needs of urban homeless are not piecemeal
and fragmented. Such committees will also be responsible for
overall leadership of the city’s shelter efforts with respect to
the urban homeless.
CLECs would plan, implement and monitor the city
shelter scheme. In cities having a population of over a mil-
lion, the Municipal Commissioner may lead such commit-
tees. In other cities, with populations of less than a million,
the District Collector may be given the lead for ensuring the
convergence of all relevant departments.
The terms of reference of the CLEC/EC with reference
to the programme/scheme of shelters for urban homeless are
as follows:
1. Overseeing the planning, coordination and implemen-
tation of the programme for homeless shelters and al-
lied services for the urban homeless
2. Approving the locations and buildings in which the
shelters will be constructed, the numbers and kind of
shelters, and the building and refurbishment of build-
ings for the homeless shelters
3. Leading on convergence of government services and
city efforts for the cause of urban homeless
4. Identifying the agencies for operating the shelters
7. Building the capacities of shelter operators and ensur-
ing regular financial support for running the shelters
8. Establishing effective transparency and grievance re-
dress systems
10. Monitoring and evaluating, including effective MIS
systems, and periodic financial, social and quality
audits
12. Ensuring individual entitlements to homeless resi-
dents of shelters and other homeless persons, in-
cluding affordable housing and separate shelters for
working men and working women.
Chapter 3
Planning for Shelters in the

City I
Rapid Mapping of Homeless Clusters and
Available Resources
In order to plan systematically the locations, numbers and

nature of permanent shelters to be established for homeless
populations in any city, the first step is to conduct a rapid
mapping of concentration of homeless populations of the city.
Such a mapping is distinct from the detailed head-
count survey, which may be undertaken separately later to
ensure individual entitlements to each homeless person and
household.
Prioritization of cities for building homeless shelters
Shelters for the urban homeless should be permanent all-

weather shelters. For every one lakh urban population,
provisions should be made for a permanent community
shelter. Each shelter should provide for a minimum of 100
persons. Depending upon local conditions two shelters with
the capacity of 50 persons each could be constructed. This
scheme is planned for all district headquarter towns and
other towns with a population of one lakh or more as per
the Census of 2011.
However, priority may be given to cities with popula-
tions of above ten lakhs and cities/towns of special social,
historical or tourist importance identified by the Government

of India/State Governments. In addition, taking into account
the requirement of shelters, other towns may be allowed in
exceptional cases, on the request of the State.
Rapid Mapping for Planning Shelters and Allied

Services
Rapid mapping for the purpose of planning location of shel-

ters is a first step. It is to be undertaken with the following
objectives:
1. to provide planners a detailed mapping of concentra-
tion areas of homeless populations in each city/town
2. to establish the demographic profile of homeless pop-
ulations in each city/town
3. to establish the location of shelters, and also the type
of shelters needed in each city/town
4. to identify official resources such as land and vacant
buildings that can be deployed to provide the required
infrastructure for shelters in appropriate locations in
each city/town.
The exercise of rapid mapping is an essential first step,
and if done well can serve as a sound foundation for all plan-
ning and implementation to cater to the needs of homeless
persons. However, the experience of the implementation of
Supreme Court’s directives in different states and cities re-
veals that so far no such mapping has been undertaken in
most cities. As a result, shelters are frequently not located in
or near areas of concentration where homeless persons live
and work. Instead, they are often established at places far
away, where homeless persons find it difficult to go to stay.
The programme therefore involves wasteful expenditure of
land, buildings and public money, with no real benefits to the
urban homeless people.
A rigorously undertaken rapid mapping exercise would
yield the following invaluable information:
Planning for Shelters in the City I 23
1. Identification of areas with concentrations of home-

less population and their categorisation in terms of
high, medium and small
2. Profiling the populations in these concentrations in
terms of gender, age, earning vs. dependent, occupa-
tional categories and special needs
3. Resource mapping of the identified needs with the
current resources (mainly buildings, relevant services
and land which are being or can be redeployed for this
purpose) available with government or to be provided
in the respective locations
4. Identifying the deterrents preventing specific sub-
groups of homeless people from using the shelters if
available in their location, as well as identifying the
aspirations of the homeless for a shelter by various
specific sub-groups
Undertaking Rapid Mapping
The Rapid Mapping phase is divided into three steps
a. Planning Phase
The City Level Empowered Committee (CLEC) should lead
the process of rapid mapping. The CLEC may be constituted
by a dedicated group, coordinated possibly by a senior official
with interest and aptitude, local schools of social work, lead-
ing NGOs with direct experience of working with homeless
people, the Nehru Yuvak Kendra, or any other institutions
or persons identified by the CLEC.
The city may be divided into smaller, more compact
regions, in line within the administrative set-up of the city,
to facilitate coordination with the government at later stag-
es. Survey teams should be constituted for each segment.
There may be five teams in a smaller city to fifteen teams or
more in a metropolis. Each teams may comprise of around
four persons for the field survey. These persons should be
a combination of state and local government officials, NGO
representatives, homeless youth volunteers, and student and

youth volunteers (such as from the National Service Scheme-
NSS and Nehru Yuvak Kendra-NYK). In addition, a team of
two data entry and analysis specialists should be attached
to each team, totalling up to six people per team. Additional
student volunteers can be added to each team to assist and
learn from the process. Each survey team should be given a
city map.
The CLEC would need to take decisions about the
following:
1. Project timelines
2. Methodology for identifying areas of concentration
and capacity
3. List of partners assisting in the qualitative as well as
quantitative surveys
4. Content and format of report to be submitted
5. List of interview questions for guiding the focus group
discussions
6. List of homeless concentration areas based on the
qualitative surveys
Prior to the survey, the teams should be trained and
oriented on:
a) the profiles and problems of the homeless;
b) participatory research techniques;
c) purpose of the rapid survey;
d) expected outcomes;
e) ethical responsibilities.
The orientation should take place in a two-day work-
shop, based on this manual as well as other Supreme Court
guidelines. Orientation material like the current document
can be provided a couple of days prior to starting the survey,
as material to be read before the training sessions. The train-
ing should include the data entry and analysis team, plus
volunteers if any.
b. Field Survey: Rapid Mapping and Resource Mapping

Once the city sub-units and trained survey teams are in
place, then rapid mapping and surveys may be undertaken
using the following steps:
1. Identifying the areas with high concentration of
homeless population along with a categorisation of
the homeless concentrations in terms of very large,
large, medium, and scattered
2. Profiling the populations in these concentrations areas
in terms of gender, earning vs. dependent, occupat
ional categories and special needs
3. Broadly identifying the possible buildings and loca-
tions that might be used as is, or upgraded to be used
as shelters and in some cases be built afresh.
4. Identifying the deterrents preventing the specific sub-
groups from using the shelters as well as identifying
the aspirations of the homeless for a shelter and all
ied services as articulated by specific sub-groups
Each survey team should be given one vehicle, and
the rapid survey conducted over two weeks to a month. The
time of the survey should begin from 8 pm onwards, because
homeless people can usually only be identified and contacted
at this time. In addition, to cover homeless persons who work
during the night, surveys should also be planned for a couple
of days during the daytime, i.e. 10 am to 4 pm.
The team will identify groups of homeless persons in
numbers of:
a) 100 or more persons, designated as very large clusters;
b) 25 to 100 persons, designated as a large clusters;
c) between 10 to 25 persons, designated as medium clus-
ters; and
d) clusters of persons numbering less than 10, including
scattered individual homeless persons or families.
They will hold focus group discussions with very large
and large clusters of homeless persons in order to document
profile and other emergent issues. As far as possible, medium

and scattered homeless persons should also be spoken to, and
the map should also indicate the locations of all these collec-
tions and clusters of homeless people.
The survey may be undertaken over a period of two
weeks to one month. The survey should be conducted using
focus group discussion methodology as an effective method
to obtain the best possible responses from the homeless per-
sons. In the focus group discussions, the questions should be
asked based on an indicative list/format focused on the follow-
ing core areas:
• What is roughly the total population of the homeless
cluster including women and children?
• What is the predominant age and gender profile of the
homeless population in that cluster?
• What are the predominant occupations undertaken
by this homeless cluster?
• Do they have any special needs and challenges, such
as disability, leprosy, TB, high drug use etc? Please
give details.
• Have the majority of homeless residents been at this
location for more than one year, or less? Please specify.
• Do they have access to any shelter? If so, please pro-
vider details, and evaluation of that shelter.
• If the government sets up a shelter for them, would they
welcome it; oppose it; or be indifferent? Ask for reasons.
• If they were to have a shelter, what would they seek
from it in terms if location; facilities; and management?
• Are there any resources available in the vicinity where
these shelters could be built? The resources could be
in the form of land or building.
This information should be recorded and collated by
each team. As a next step, the overall figures for the city
or town should be collated. To ensure a faster turnaround,
data entry and analysis should happen in parallel with the
survey.
The following deliverables are expected out of this

process:
1. Conclusion of rapid surveys including focus group
discussions
2. Conclusion of quantitative surveys
3. Collated survey results
4. Finalised resource mapping questionnaire for the
next stage of resource mapping
5. Determination of shelter locations, types, number of
shelters required in an area, plus available resources
in terms of land and building
c. Resource Mapping
The next step is to conduct a resource mapping exercise. This
process needs around one or two weeks to complete. The re-
sources that this phase of the survey seeks to identify are a)
existing shelters; b) unutilised or underutilised government
buildings that can be possibly redeployed as shelters after
suitable refurbishing; and c) vacant lands that are suitable
potential sites for new shelter buildings.
Based on results from the field survey of the mapping
process, the local government and municipal officials should
be contacted and requested to collaborate with the team.
They should be asked to visit the proposed buildings and lo-
cations found suitable by homeless respondents as shelter
sites. Typically, executive engineers or other officials desig-
nated by the municipal commissioner/officer will accompany
the survey teams to qualify the available land/buildings at
each of the identified locations, as feasible or not feasible,
based on government considerations. If such buildings are
not available, the teams would need to jointly identify ap-
propriate sites on which the permanent shelters can be built.
Preference should be given to shelters with good ventilation,
open spaces and a healthy environment. The shelter building
designs should be low cost and environmentally appropriate,
including (where considered appropriate) the use of prefabri-
cated structures.
In parallel to the process of rapid mapping and re-

source mapping, data entry and analysis is simultaneously
done and updated. At the end of this process, the following
deliverables are expected:
1. Field resource mapping survey of all the identified po-
tential buildings and shelter locations
2. Determination of the feasibility of the identified build-
ings and locations for building/upgrading shelters,
along with government agencies
3. Collating results and submitting to concerned urban
bodies at the city level
4. Discussions on recommendations to be put forth in
the report
d. Reporting and Sharing

Once the results of locations are established, the next step is
development and finalisation of a comprehensive city plan.
This should include sites for homeless shelters and services,
converging on homeless concentration areas and aspirations
with available resources, buildings and land. This should be
done in a participatory manner, with the involvement of mu-
nicipal authorities, homeless communities and collectives,
schools of social work and architecture, CSOs, NSS and col-
lege students etc.
Broad trends emerging from the surveys and focus
groups will be identified during step 2 of the above given pro-
cess (determination of the feasibility of the identified build-
ings and locations for building/upgrading shelters, along
with government agencies) itself. Detailed analysis and re-
port writing will be done in step 3 (collating results and sub-
mitting to concerned urban bodies at the city level). There
will be regular status update meetings to track the progress.
A time of three weeks should be kept aside for docu-
ment collation, discussions and report finalisation. This re-
port should then be shared with the local government body
as the basis for funding and approval of proposals for each
shelter (women, aged, disabled, mentally challenged and re-

covery shelters for homeless patients etc.).
The state government, local bodies and other organi
sations assisting them, should use the report of rapid map-
ping for the homeless to plan the locations, types and numbers
of shelters in each location. The decision on where the men’s
and women’s shelters, and the specialized shelters (such as
for aged, disabled and mentally challenged) would be located,
and the numbers and mix of types of shelters in each loca-
tion, would be based on the findings of the rapid survey. The
rapid survey feedback should also guide the planning of the
services and management systems of the shelters.
At the end of this stage, the following deliverables are
expected:
1. Analysis and inferences including homeless concen-
tration areas, profiles, needs and aspirations of home-
less populations in each concentration area
2. Report submission with the following minimum
arenas:
a. Location of shelters
b. Types of shelters (working single men; single
women and their dependents; special needs
shelters such as for drug users, those recov-
ering from grave illnesses, the aged, disabled
and infirm
c. Capacity of each shelter
d. Facilities and Services to be provided at the
shelters
e. Resource mapping of needs against existing
resources
3. Signed off final report
4. Submission of the data set for the project
Chapter 4
Planning for Shelters in the

City II
Post Mapping Implementation Planning
The rapid mapping exercise offers the planners vital informa-

tion, which is invaluable for detailed planning while creating
and running homeless shelters in the city. The information
recorded after such an exercise should include the following:
1. How many homeless clusters exist in the city? How
many of these are very large (more than 100 persons),
large (25 to 100), medium (10 to 25) and scattered
(below 10 persons)?
2. What are the locations, gender, age and livelihood
profiles of these clusters?
3. Do the homeless access shelters which exist, and if
not why not? What are their shelter aspirations?
4. What are the potential buildings and lands where
shelters may be built or buildings refurbished?
Based on this information, the City Level Empowered
Committee/Executive Committee would be in a position to
develop a detailed implementation plan for homeless shel-
ters and allied services for each city and town.
The main features of these plans should include deci-
sions for the following questions:
1. How many shelters will the city have?
2. What will be the locations of these shelters?
3. What will be the mix of working men shelters and
special shelters for single women, families, recovery

shelters etc? What services will be provided in each of
these shelters?
4. What would be the designs of shelters, both refur-
bished existing buildings and new buildings?
5. What is the ideal staffing of shelters?
6. Who will run the shelters?
7. Will user costs be imposed on the users of shelters?
8. How should participatory systems of shelter manage-
ment be developed?
9. What systems of financial, quality and social audits
should be introduced?
10. What complementary services such as community
kitchens and health services should the shelters offer?
11. What individual entitlements and access to perma-
nent housing arrangements should be organised in
the shelters?
This chapter will deal with the questions one to six, and
the next chapter will consider the last two questions in some
detail.
Numbers of Shelters:
The decision on numbers of shelters to be constructed in any

city would depend firstly on estimates of the homeless popula-
tions in the city. Many State Governments are relying on cen-
sus estimates of the homeless populations, or on head counts
specially undertaken by state governments or local bodies.
However, such estimates are likely to be gross under-estima-
tions, because urban homeless populations are extremely dif-
ficult to identify, reach and count for many reasons.
The homeless population is extremely heterogeneous in
terms of age group, gender, livelihoods, place of origin and
their reasons for living on the streets. It is a group that we
can meet only in the evenings or late at night, because what
serves after dark as their dwelling becomes with sunrise,
Planning for Shelters in the City II 33
pavements, streets, road-dividers and shopping corridors.

The homeless are wary both of government and middle class
residents of the city, particularly because both perceive
homeless people of any age and gender to be dangerous and
on the wrong side of the law. Therefore, to develop with them
bonds of trust and communication, the enumerators have to
persevere in visiting them over long periods. The homeless
are also sometimes of unstable location and may move from
day to day to different parts of the city, or even to other cities.
They lack a formal address and are rendered anonymous be-
cause they usually do not have even the elementary markers
of citizenship of poor people in India, like ration cards and
voters’ identity cards.
These factors lead to low official estimations of home-
less people in any city. These head counts are usually con-
ducted over a short period (the census is over in one day and
night). They are conducted by enumerators who are usually
under-trained and not suitably equipped to persevere and
build relations of trust with the homeless people and seek
them out in hidden and unexpected locations. Our alternate
head-counts by committed and trained researchers working
over several nights has revealed that the numbers of home-
less persons in a city is not likely to be less than one per cent
of the total population of the city.
Therefore, planners should obtain the latest estimates
of the city population, and estimate the population of home-
less persons to be one per cent of this figure.
Shelters may have the capacity of 50 or 100 residents
each. However, because of space constraints in cities, usu-
ally the maximum capacity of each shelter is 50. Divide the
population of homeless persons to be covered with shelters
by the average capacity of each shelter, and we arrive at the
minimum numbers of shelters required in the first phase for
that city. For example, if the population of a city is one mil-
lion (or 10 lakhs), the estimated homeless population at one
per cent is 10,000. Even if only 15 per cent of this population
is covered by shelters, the coverage should be for 1500 home-
less persons. If the capacity of each shelter is 50, the numbers
of shelters in that city would need to be 30, or which at least

10 would be special shelters. Cities are free to plan above
this norm, if there is a perceived need, but these estimations
provide a base number of shelters, which each city is legally
bound to provide. It is to be noted that if in the first phase,
at least 15 to 20 per cent of the urban homeless populations
are covered, that will address the most urgent need in the
first stage itself. It will also provide the experience further to
administrators for evolving the programme of shelters.
Locations of Shelters
The Executive Committee (EC)/City Level Empowered Com

mittee (CLEC) will take the decision on locations of shelters.
This decision should be based primarily on the information
collected from the rapid mapping process.
As far as possible, and with every effort to make it thus,
the location of shelters should be in areas, which are close to
their livelihood opportunities/work sites and where there is a
concentration of homeless persons, as revealed by the rapid
mapping exercise. Experience of work with homeless people
countrywide, indeed worldwide, shows that urban homeless
persons will access shelters only if these are located in the con-
centration areas of where they ordinarily reside and work. This
is essential, as homeless people choose to live in areas where
livelihood opportunities are available for them. It is futile to
locate homeless shelters at the periphery of cities, because
homeless persons cannot viably reside in locations distant
from where they can find work. They are the most vulnerable
occupationally; many are casual workers, and must be present
every morning at labour addas where potential employers can
pick them up. Location is critical for street vendors, domestic
workers, rag pickers, rickshaw pullers, construction workers,
casual sex workers and persons dependent on begging. Hence,
shelters should preferably be located close to the areas such
as railway stations, bus depots, terminals, markets, wholesale
mandis (market yards), labour addas etc.
However, the final locations of shelters in any city

should only be decided after mapping the concentration areas
where homeless persons reside and work.
Other considerations for deciding the location of shel-
ters are hygiene, sanitation, ventilation, open spaces and the
possibilities of ensuring sufficient water and electricity con-
nections. Certain livelihoods may have special space require-
ments. Homeless rickshaw pullers may only access a shelter
where they can safely park their rickshaws, and rag pickers
require a place where they can safely store their bags filled
with waste (and where no one objects to the smell of their
waste collections). Their acceptance by host communities
may also have to be negotiated. Residents of gated communi-
ties are unlikely to permit the creation of homeless shelters
within their boundaries.
These considerations will have to be converged with
the availability of potential public buildings or lands for the
shelters, as revealed by the mapping exercise. The mapping
exercise should reveal unused public buildings, old shelter
homes, infrastructure, as well as land in the areas of con-
centration of homeless persons. The matching of homeless
concentration locations with available buildings and land is
the crucial step, which would enable development of a city-
wide plan for community shelters and services for homeless
populations.
Thus, location of urban homeless shelters should be
permitted in residential, commercial, industrial, public,
and semi-public use zones. It should be allowed in other use
zones also, on special permission by the planning authority/
urban local body. If need be, the master plans may be suit-
ably amended to permit construction of such shelters or spe-
cial permission may be sought from the competent authority.
To whatever extent possible, the issue of land-use for
shelters would need to be negotiated by the CLECs in favour
of the requirements of homeless residents. At the town plan-
ning level, the need for homeless shelters have been identi-
fied both by the Urban Development Projects Formulation
and Implementation (UDPFI) guidelines, and several
Table 5.1 Land uses wherein construction of homeless

shelters is permitted (As per UDPFI Guidelines)
Whether shelters permitted/
Land use zone
prohibited
Residential Permitted
Commercial Permitted
Transportation and
Permitted
Communication
May be permitted with due
Public and Semi – Public Use
permission from the ULBs/
zone
Planning Authorities
Industrial Prohibited
Recreational Prohibited
Agriculture and Water Body Prohibited
master-plans (such as in the Delhi master-plan). The UDPFI

guidelines mention the land-uses where homeless shelters
are permitted or prohibited. (See Table 5.1)
While there is a basic provision for shelters in the plan-
ning norms, there needs to be more detail and clarity brought
to the issue, so that the urban local bodies can build shelters
within their master-plan frameworks.1 The following actions
are required in this context, and the City Level Empowered
Committee should take a lead on this:
1. Shelters should be permitted in residential, commer-
cial, industrial, public, and semi-public use zones.
They should also be allowed in other use zones,
through special permission granted by the planning
authority/urban local body.
2. Clear population and space norms should be formu-
lated for shelters at the national level, taking into
account different city sizes. These norms should be
circulated to all states for incorporation within the
master-plans/development plans.
1
These recommendations are based on suggestions by RK Safaya, Chief Town
Planner, HUDCO
3. Based on the above norms and use zone permissions,

space for shelters should be reserved in zonal plans/
layout plans.
4. Homeless shelters should be permitted near all places
that attract large numbers of floating populations,
such as transport terminals, wholesale markets, hos-
pitals etc.
5. Incorporating the above suggestions, the UDPFI
guidelines should be revised accordingly.
New city level master plans, which are currently being
developed or will be developed in the future, should also in-
clude provisions for shelter spaces and shelters, spaces for
working peoples’ hostels and social housing for poor, as part
of their design and development.
One major category of homeless persons in many cit-
ies is construction workers. The city level plan and CLEC
should ensure that the Labour Department enforces labour
laws for the construction of decent labour transit colonies as
a pre-condition before issuance of work orders in all major
constructions. It is estimated that anything between a fifth
and a quarter of homeless people in many cities could be ac-
commodated in building companies if contractors built such
well-equipped decent labour colonies for their workers. This
should be an essential part of any city level shelter plan.
Similarly, in every hundred-bed hospital, railway sta-
tion and transport department bus terminals, it should be
mandatory for shelters to be built for the temporarily home-
less populations who may cluster in these locations.
Existing beggars’ homes, old age centres run by NGOs,
public trusts, or by the ministry of social welfare departments,
shall not count as shelters for homeless persons, unless they
are fully restructured in conformity with this programme.
Planning the type of shelter and services in shelters
There should be a suitable mix of shelters for men, women

and families, and special shelters based on the local home-
less population profile, which is revealed by the rapid map-
ping exercise. The following are the types of shelters that
should be constructed:
1. General, These are all weather, day-and-night, per-
manent shelters. Since the maximum population
among the homeless is of men, general shelters would
primarily cater to single working men, with special fa-
cilities available for special groups within, such as re-
covery rooms for male persons recovering from grave
ailments and spaces for the male aged and disabled
2. Special shelters. These are also permanent, all
weather, day-and-night shelters. At least a third of
all shelters in the city should be devoted to home-
less people with special needs and build at their lo-
cation, with design and services catering to their
special needs. These will serve urban homeless
populations that fall among the following categories:
(a) single women and their dependent minor children,
(b) the aged, (c) the infirm, (d) the disabled, (e) the
mentally challenged etc. Separate shelters need to be
set up. Actual break-up would depend on local par-
ticularities, and size of the city and total numbers of
shelters.
a) Women shelters: Shelters for the exclusive use of
women in terms of location, design, services and sup-
port systems, should be designed to cater to the needs
of women and their dependent children. In every
ULB, no matter how small the populace, at least one
such shelter for women should be constructed.
b) Family shelters: For families living on the streets;
family shelters should be provided, with a special de-
sign for privacy, with shared common spaces.
c) Other special shelters: Taking into account special
needs for segments of homeless persons, such as old
persons without care, mentally ill, recovering pa-

tients and their families etc., special shelters may be
provided.
In addition, while planning shelters, we need to keep
the following considerations in mind:
1. At least thirty per cent of the shelters in any town
should cater to homeless women and their depend-
ents. In every city or town, no matter how small the
populace, at least one such shelter for women must
be constructed, even if this is not in the population
norms.
2. All shelters should be inclusive, in that they should
not turn away residents who are disabled, aged, ail-
ing and infirm.
3. For these most vulnerable segments of homeless
persons, such as old persons without care and men-
tally ill and challenged persons, there is need also
for long term social protection institutions, but
these should be open, dignified and voluntary and
be equipped with appropriate services. In all mil-
lion plus cities of the country, and as many other
cities as possible based on the specific population
profile, the state government may, in addition to
the mandated homeless shelters, build specialised
long-stay shelters for groups with specialised needs.
These could be old persons without caregivers, the
mentally ill who need specialized care and stay ar-
rangements and for drug users and addicts who are
in need of de-addiction care and counselling.
4. All major public hospitals should create sufficient
and appropriately designed shelters, both recovery
shelters for recovering homeless persons, as well as
services to house families of poor resident patients.
Community health departments of all these hospitals
should also be organised to provide both outreach
and in-patient services to homeless populations. All
shelters should also accommodate recovering patients

and segregate them within the shelters only if they
suffer from infectious ailments such as TB. Patients
should not be turned away from any shelter.
5. For families living on the streets, in addition to shelter
spaces, the state governments are encouraged to pro-
vide coverage under social housing programmes such
the Rajiv Awaas Yojana and housing programmes
run by state governments. Therefore, shelter spaces
for families should be treated as transition spaces in
the form of family shelters, until the social housing
access fructifies. In such shelters, there should be
separate rooms, or segregated spaces for family units,
with shared common spaces like toilets and kitchens.
Facilities/ amenities at Shelters

Each shelter should have proper display of legible name
boards with their text in Hindi, English and the local lan-
guage. The address of the shelter should also be written on
the board. There should be proper hoardings across the loca-
tions so that the homeless are aware of the existing shelter
facility. In addition, before the start of any shelter, a full com-
munication campaign should be launched. For this campaign,
in addition to newspapers and TV announcements, students
and volunteers from amongst homeless persons should be re-
cruited to reach out to homeless persons to communicate the
availability and details of the homeless shelters.
Shelters should provide all appropriate facilities for dignified
human living. The following facilities must be provided in
each shelter:
1. A space of minimum of 50 square feet per person
2. Bed and bedding (blanket, mattress, pillow, bed-
sheets) on a use basis, with arrangements to launder
these periodically
3. Personal lockers for personal storage space
For each shelter, it will be mandatory to provide the

following common facilities:
1. Water arrangements (potable drinking water and
other needs) and sanitation with regular running
water supply
2. Adequate toilet facilities with a minimum norm of one
toilet and bathing space for 12 persons
3. Bathing and washing area with running water, to
cater to the needs to all residents
4. Adequate bathing facilities, including running water,
water storage cans, buckets and mugs
5. Cooling, ventilation and heating, as per need of the
local area
6. Standard lighting for shelters, including emergency
lights
7. Adequate fire protection measures, as under guide-
lines for enclosed public places, with clear and func-
tional fire exits
8. Common recreation space with television, reading
space, and so on
9. First aid supplies to cover the total population at the
shelter
10. Pest and vector (mosquito) control, with regular
fumigation
11. Regular cleaning of blankets, mattresses and sheets,
and maintenance of other services
12. Suitable waste management arrangements
13. An open space, either on the ground or the terrace,
with additional spaces based on livelihood and stor-
age needs of residents, such as for parking rickshaws
and carts, and storing sacks of collected waste
14. Kitchen/cooking space and necessary equipment such
as cooking gas connections
15. Adequate utensils for cooking and serving
16. Child-care facilities, for dependent minor children
with linkage to the urban ICDS centres; in case of
more than 10 children, a separate mini anganwadi to

be opened at the shelter with attendant facilities
17. Psychosocial counselling, treatment linkages and
health services including de-addiction services
18. Referral services and transport facilities in case of
health emergency. The shelter should be well linked
with the emergency services of the ULBs such as am-
bulance, police station and fire services. The contact
numbers should be well displayed in the shelter
19. Facilitation for convergence with other services such
postal address and banking services to serve as trans-
action address, livelihood and vocational skills and
other programmes. The aspects of rehabilitation,
which the shelters are expected to facilitate, range
from social rehabilitation to employability
20. Linkages with entitlements. Shelters should be a
space for convergence and provisions of various en-
titlements of social security, food and education and
healthcare schemes of the government, most of which
still elude the homeless, due to their perceived illegal
existence. This is dealt with in more detail in the next
chapter
Special facilities for women’s shelters

In addition to the above facilities, the special shelters for
women and children also need to have certain special provi-
sions, which are categorised below:
a. Protection, security and privacy for women must be en-
sured. Special care needs to be taken to ensure the se-
curity of residents of women’s shelters in view of the vi-
olence, abuse and exploitation they face on the streets.
Such shelters must be separate from men’s shelters,
with security services where the ratio of women staff
to male staff must be high, and women staff must be
available to assist residents round the clock.
b. Psycho-social counselling arrangements must be
made available at the women’s shelter since most
among the homeless women are victims of domestic

violence, sexual abuse and are in need of special care
and support. There should also be counselling facili-
ties for dependent children.
c. Special recreation facilities and activities must be
made available, to counter the climate in which badly
broken women with low morale and self-esteem enter
the shelter. In addition to television, special facilities
for recreation, such as some games etc., should be
provided.
d. Training and livelihood support should be provided
at all women’s shelters. Livelihood counselling could
be arranged so that they become self-dependent in
the course of time. Training and short-term courses
can be started for women. For these, they should also
receive a stipend from the government. For example,
shelters can be used as food production units, where
homeless women within and outside the shelter can
form SHGs to supply cooked food to ICDS centres and
for school meals. Women can also start small-scale
food services that might be used for the specific shel-
ter or for other shelters as well. This can be a means
of gaining reasonable employment and esteem.
e. Linkage with de-addiction centres should be provided.
In every city, there should be one de-addiction centre/
link for every 10 shelters, with a minimum of one de-
addiction centre linkage for women shelters. The de-
addiction services will have to be provided free of cost
as most people who will be using them will either not
want to pay for these services or will not be in a posi-
tion to pay for them.
f. Dependent children below the school going age and
up to ten years can stay at women’s shelters. Crèche
facilities should be provided at all women’s shelters.
For pre-school children, in case the numbers of chil-
dren at the shelter is ten and above, a separate mini-
anganwadi should be set up. Where the number of
children of preschool age is less than ten, there should

be linkages with chaperone services to the nearest an-
ganwadi centre. Such services will prepare children
to enter regular mainstream schooling. School going
children must be linked to residential schools with
board and lodging facilities.
g. Legal aid and emergency services should be provided.
For the women’s shelters in particular, legal support
through linkage with CSOs working on legal aid and
an active linkage with State legal Aid agency for re-
ferral of cases should be provided. For speedy follow
up and immediate relief, linkages with the existing
Protection Officer of PWDVA, should also be facili-
tated at the shelter.
Design of shelters (both existing and new buildings)

and construction planning
The CLEC should review the homeless mapping results and

develop a phased shelter plan for the city based on the fol-
lowing criterion:
1. In Phase 1, shelters will be constructed in those areas
for homeless communities where resources in the
form of government buildings are available, which
can be easily converted to shelters.
2. In Phase 2, priority will be given to establishing new
buildings for sufficient numbers of men, women , and
special shelters in every city.
In case land or buildings are not directly under the con-
trol of the municipal authority of the city, the CLEC will work
with various departments to obtain NOCs. The Committee
will also work with the government to release earmarked
funds for refurbishment and construction of the shelters, and
for running costs.
Where existing infrastructure/public buildings are
being used, suitable refurbishment and augmentation plans
will need to be developed to meet the requisite service and

space requirements. Required Building Fitness Certificate
shall need to be obtained from competent authorities, namely:
● The building must be certified structurally safe for
human habitation by a competent technical au-
thority. The certificate should be suitably updated
periodically.
● The building must have adequate ventilation.
● Windows must be protected with grills, mosquito net
and unbroken windowpane.
● The staircases, if any, must have safe railings and
stairs in place. The building should be thoroughly
cleaned and whitewashed before handing over.
● Every effort must be made to make the shelter acces-
sible for senior citizens and persons with disability.
● The doors have to be broad to enable easy access for
the disabled.
Permanent shelters should be designed in an environ-
mentally friendly manner, with a flexibility in design, to cater
to local systems and needs. Permanent shelters may be built
of concrete or durable and weatherproof alternate structures,
with environmental designs and rainwater harvesting, solar
heating and lighting facilities. In developing shelter design,
state governments are encouraged to promote innovative de-
signs and low cost and energy efficient buildings.
The homeless shelter structure should be safe and
secure with a sense of belonging for the inmates. The archi-
tectural design of the shelter home should take into consid-
eration the region’s weather conditions, so that it provides
protection against extreme climate. The infrastructure should
have sufficient minimum numbers of toilets, sanitation and
waste disposal infrastructure, with adequate supply of water,
electricity and safe storages spaces like cupboards and lock-
ers. The building should be bright and well ventilated with
adequate windows, doors and grills.
There should be a minimum of one lavatory unit (Indian
style) and one bathing unit for 12 persons, with at least one
western style lavatory especially for injured, sick, disabled

and senior citizens. All the lavatories and bathrooms should
have sturdy flushing system and a temper resistant tap for
washing, with assured 24 hours water flow and provision of
adequate backup by building overhead tanks. The ventilators
and windows should be suitably covered to ensure protection
from mosquitoes and protect privacy, without compromising
adequate airflow, and the doors should be intact, painted and
waterproofed.
The homes must have provision for minimum of 75
litres of water per resident, with specially marked taps for
clean drinking water. The shelter homes should be well
maintained with all electrical wiring and fitting covered,
protected and approved by a trained technical team. There
should be adequate number of fans evenly spaced to cover
every spot of the shelter with flow of air and, if resources per-
mit, desert coolers. For recreational purposes, there should
be a TV (with cable connection) fitted at a common place. The
shelters should have clear fire fighting plans and equipment,
emergency exit plans etc.
Once the city plan is developed and architectural plans
outlined, tenders for construction may be floated, giving pri-
ority to labour collectives from slum and street based popula-
tions. The CLEC will monitor the construction of the shelters
in accordance with defined quality standards.
Staffing of Shelters
Each shelter will have the following minimum staffing:

• One full time manager. The responsibility of the shel-
ter manager is overseeing the smooth functioning of
the shelter, interfacing with the government, insur-
ing convergence with government and community
services, managing reintegration services etc., at the
shelter level. Shelters for women will have women
managers.
• Three caregivers, each caregiver in a shift for eight

hours. Caregivers will provide support to the resi-
dents and to the manager in mobilising homeless per-
sons, dispute resolution, kitchen management and re-
cord maintenance etc. Shelters for women shall have
women caregivers.
These staff members will be engaged by the Urban
Local Body (ULB) or be resourced through the Shelter
Implementation Agency (SIA). Salaries of the staff will be a
part of the operations and management cost of the shelter.
While the minimum staffing requirements are outlined
above, it is desirable to have additional staff to ensure smooth
programming beyond the level of individual shelters. Where
more staff is required, or their salary is higher, the urban
local body or the state government would have to arrange
funds from other sources for the following staffing
● One Coordinator, preferably a trained social worker
(overseeing the smooth functioning of the shelter,
government interface, convergence with government
and community services, reintegration services etc.)
who could be responsible for overseeing more than
one shelter (maximum three)
● One Social Mobiliser (mobilising homeless as well as
community and civil society partnerships) who could
be a shared resource between two or three shelters
● Two sanitation staff
Depending on who is responsible for running the shel-
ter, shelter staff may or may not be Government employees.
However, budgets for the salaries and functioning of such
personnel shall be budgeted and provided by the Government.
Shelter staff must be thoroughly oriented regarding
shelter implementation standards, protocols, operational
plans and monitoring systems (including the MIS and qual-
ity audits). In addition, shelter staff must be oriented with
respect to catering to the homeless brought in via the emer-
gency rescue plan. Shelter staff must also be oriented about
how to facilitate referral systems and the linkage of homeless

persons with government schemes
Management Agencies for Running Shelters
Operations and management of the shelter/s can be under-

taken directly by a ULB or an agency identified by the ULB.
Agencies that may be designated as Shelter Management
Agency to run the shelters are given below:
1. Homeless persons’ collectives
2. Youth and women’s community based groups
3. Universities and Institutions.
4. Nehru Yuvak Kendras
5. Unorganised workers’ trade unions
6. NGOs and CSOs registered under the Societies, 1860
and Trust Acts or other similar laws of the State
Governments
7. Self Help Groups and Committees recognised by the
state government/urban local body
8. Resident Welfare Associations
9. Public or private sector companies or associations
It would be advisable to link each shelter with a spe-
cific college or high school, so that the students can regularly
engage with the residents of the shelters, ensuring quality of
the shelters and learning community service.
The management of shelters should be allocated through
an open and transparent process. As stated earlier, regard-
less of the agency that runs the shelters, basic resources for
construction, refurbishing, maintenance and staffing, should
be provided from public funds as outlined above and can only
be supplemented by other sources.
The agency, that is chosen to run the shelter or the ULB
(in case it chooses to run the shelter directly), is expected to
carry out orientation and identification, training, as well as
be responsible for operational management of the shelter. It
is expected that this agency will have the requisite skills and
capability to run the shelters.
This exercise should be the responsibility of the CLEC.
The CLEC should identify necessary resources for developing
capacities of line departments and civil society organisations for
running, managing and implementing shelter services. Apart
from the shelter staff, capacity development and training pro-
grammes should be planned for the following groups separately
or in batches, depending upon the size of groups involved, with
plans for interface meetings among them.
• Government representatives: Concerned state govern-
ment representatives must be oriented and sensitised
to the need for shelters for the homeless, the needs of
various homeless groups, implementation and moni-
toring strategy, budgetary aspects and grievance re-
dressal mechanisms.
• Urban local body representatives: ULB representa-
tives must be oriented and sensitised to the require-
ments of various homeless groups, their need for shel-
ters, the implementation and monitoring strategy,
as well as budgetary aspects and grievance redress
mechanisms. In addition, they must be familiarised
with homeless and shelter identification processes in
detail, reporting systems (quality audits And MIS),
detailed shelter operational plans including imple-
mentation protocols, how to facilitate linkage of home-
less persons with government schemes etc.
• Shelter implementation agencies: Shelter implement-
ation agencies or youth groups also require to have
similar skill sets as ULB representatives.
• Public health officials, trained health workers associa-
ted with the shelters: Public health officials oversee-
ing the running of hospitals and health centres, as
well as health workers assigned duty at the homeless
shelters must be oriented with respect to their role in
this service.
• Police and Railway Police: The local police forces must

be sensitised to the needs and rights of the homeless.
User Costs
Homeless persons, as defined under this programme, irre-

spective of the duration of their stay in city, and without
requirement of any identity proof or any other qualification
and employment, should be eligible to reside in a homeless
shelter created under this programme. They should not be
denied access to shelters under any circumstances.
The CLEC would need to take the decision about
whether or not to levy user costs on residents of homeless
shelters. Our own recommendation is to not charge user
costs, because charges for admitting the homeless to shel-
ters should not become a barrier to their entry. However,
even if the Committee decides to impose user costs from
the perspective of generating ownership of the residents,
these should be nominal, and user costs should not be a
replacement for welfare (operational and running) costs
of the shelters, which must be provided for fully by the
government.
The following principles should determine the imposi-
tion of user costs by any implementing authority:
1. Only nominal user fee, with the objective of improv-
ing the participation of residents should be charged.
Full exemptions should apply for the old and infirm/
vulnerable (non-working), disabled homeless persons,
and single women and their dependents and others
with no capacity to pay.
2. Charges collected also should be modest at rates rang-
ing from one tenth to one twentieth of the income of a
homeless person. The fund so collected could be used
for maintenance of facilities.
3. Meals provided at the centre should be fully subsi-
dised for the old and infirm/vulnerable (non-working),
single women and disabled, and all children. For

other shelter residents, meals may be provided at
subsidised costs as decided by the state/ULB.
4. Residents should be encouraged to offer services for
maintenance of shelter homes including mess facili-
ties, cleaning etc., on a rotation basis (for example, half
day service per person per week, based on times ad-
justed). The shelter manager together with the shelter
management committee could evolve norms for these.
Promoting Participatory Management of Shelters
In each shelter, a Shelter Management Committee should

be constituted comprising of three permanent shelter staff
and four members elected by the residents of the shelter.
Given the possibility of shifting populations in the shelters,
elections should be held every six months (or earlier if three
or four of the elected shelter residents cease to live in the
shelter). This Committee will oversee the daily management,
upkeep, and cleanliness of the shelter, as well as develop
programmes and guidelines for re-integration, discipline and
improvement.
In order to promote participation of the people living in
the homes and a sense of ownership and control over their
place of residence, the Shelter Management Committee
should constitute from among the regular residents of the
shelter, sub- committees for the following:
1. Health and hygiene
2. Food
3. Infrastructure and maintenance
4. Inductions of new residents
5. Discipline
All residents should be encouraged to offer voluntary
services for maintenance of shelter homes including mess fa-
cilities, cleanliness etc., on rotation basis (i.e. half day service
per person/week). The shelter Manager should evolve these

norms together with caregivers and along with shelter resi-
dents and the Shelter Management Committee.
The Shelter Management Agency responsible for run-
ning the shelter, in collaboration with the educational insti-
tution that is attached to each shelter, should constitute a
Shelter Advisory/Support Committee. This committee should
comprise of student and college staff volunteers, volunteers
from the local community, members of homeless collectives,
civil society members or persons who make donations for the
shelter. The committee should provide advice and support for
improvement of services in the shelter and assist residents to
access individual entitlements including permanent housing
and eventual re-integration.
Monitoring, Grievance Redressal and Audit Systems
The success of the programme rests on putting in place a

robust MIS system, with the monitoring, evaluation and
assessment that involve the homeless persons as the key
stakeholders. These systems should ensure timely redressal
of grievances, timely feedback and corrective action, as well
as feedback for mid-course reviews.
The National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) cur-
rently finances the scheme of shelters for the urban home-
less. Under this mission, an Executive Committee (also called
the Empowered Committee for the purposes of convergence/
leadership to this programme) under the chairpersonship of the
Municipal Commissioner is required to be constituted to manage
the affairs of NULM. At the city level, this EC will be responsi-
ble for the review and supervision of the working of shelters.
This review and supervision will be done with the participation
of community representatives, civil society organizations, line
departments and elected representatives etc.
The state level Urban Livelihoods Mission/Urban Local
Body and executing agencies are required to report quar-
terly progress of their respective projects in prescribed form,
indicating the cumulative achievement up to the end of the

quarter to report key issues in implementation. These bod-
ies at the state/ULB level shall closely monitor progress of
activities/targets under this component, undertake reporting
and evaluation on a timely basis, indicating the cumulative
achievements and key issues in implementation monthly
until the end of the quarter.
In addition, under NULM, a comprehensive and robust
IT-enabled NULM MIS will be established for tracking tar-
gets and achievements. States and ULBs will be required to
submit their progress reports online and may use this tool
to monitor progress on the ground. In the spirit of proactive
disclosure of information and ensuring transparency under
NULM, key progress reports under this scheme of shelters
for urban homeless will also be made available in the public
domain in a timely manner. In addition, States/ULBs will
undertake independent quality evaluation for quality checks
on projects being implemented. Apart from these measures,
the state government should organise a social audit of each
shelter at least once a year.
The State/ULB shall prescribe norms and guidelines
about the grievance redressal mechanism. In order to make
grievance redress a live mechanism, each shelter should
maintain the following records:
1. Shelter Asset Inventory Book
2. Attendance Register
3. SMC Meeting Register
4. Personnel Register with Salary Payment Details
5. Guest Register
6. House Keeping Register
7. Health Register
8. Maintenance Register
9. RHA Audit and Accident Record
10. Complaint and Suggestion Register
11. Monitoring and Audit Register
12. Monthly and Annual Report Record
Grievance Redress Systems

All shelters need to maintain a complaint register at the shel-
ter itself where residents can record complaints. There will
also be a locked box for those who choose to use it for com-
plaints. The Shelter Manager will be responsible for ensuring
that complaints are redressed within a maximum of 15 days of
being recorded. However, for complaints which require imme-
diate redress, such as clogged toilets, inadequate bedding and
no drinking water, these should be addressed within 24 hours.
Details of the number of complaints lodged and the number of
complaints redressed must be recorded in the monthly MIS.
Registers must be examined at periodic intervals. The Shelter
Management Committee will ensure the timely redressal of
complaints, and the Shelter Advisory/Support Committee will
oversee this activity.
Every City Empowered Committee or Executive
Committee (under the chairpersonship of the Municipal
Commissioner in million plus towns or District Magistrate in
other towns) should designate a Grievance Redressal Officer
(GRO) at the city level who can directly be accessed by shel-
ter residents. Her/his role will be to hear the grievances and
petitions of the homeless people and dispose of these within
15 days of their being lodged. These grievances could be for-
warded in the form of complaints to the Shelter Manager for
immediate action. The GRO’s office will maintain a complaint
register, with details of complaints made and action taken
recorded. Residents who record complaints must be provided
with an acknowledgement receipt. The Commissioner or
head of the municipal body/or district Collector, as the case
may be, will act as the first appellate authority. In case their
grievances are still not addressed, homeless citizen can ap-
proach the Principal Secretary Urban with their complaints.
City police will be oriented to ensure that no homeless
person, regardless of whether or not she or he chooses to live
in the shelter, is harassed on the street.
Transparency Systems
1. At each shelter, there will be a board that will display
the rights and responsibilities of the residents.
2. Information on all funds for the shelter should be pre-
sented transparently and displayed prominently.
3. Each shelter shall have a three monthly quality audit
by a designated third-party agency, preferably a col-
lege. The outcomes and action on the quality audit
shall be shared with the concerned line department
and ULB.
4. At the city level, all funds, details of shelters, MIS
etc., should be placed in the public domain.
5. Help lines and rescue services should be created at
the state level and widely publicised at railway sta-
tions, bus depots, religious places, schools and colleg-
es. Nodal officers of each department must be named
and contact phone numbers should be made available
in the public domain.
Quality Audits and Social Audits

Quality Audits: The quality-rating audit will be conducted
at the shelter level on a quarterly basis, and at least once
annually. Annual social audits have limited use as a feedback
mechanism to address quality and other issues. Thus, at the
shelter level quarterly audits should be encouraged as ”live”
feedback and development tools. The audits are expected to
be conducted by third party external reviewers, such as uni-
versities, independent institutes, civil society organisations
appointed for this purpose. These audits should be conducted
unannounced. They should be qualitative in nature, adopt-
ing methods of observation and interview. Interviews will be
held with staff and residents present in the shelter at the
time of the audit, separately. Interviews with residents must
be closed-door in nature.
The outcomes of the quality audits and actions taken
should be shared with the residents, the shelter management
and advisory committees, the concerned line department and
the ULB. Audit reports must be made available for public

viewing not more than one month after their completion.
Items marked for follow-up must be reviewed during the next
audit. Action must be taken in case of lapses in follow up.
The quality audits will investigate:
1. Stakeholder satisfaction
2. Utilisation of the shelter
3. Quality of services
4. Financial management and probity
5. Documentation
6. Standard procedures and protocols
After the social and quality audits, there shall be a
maximum of two notices for poor quality ratings or failure to
comply to the fixed guidelines. If there is a third poor quality
finding in the quality audits, the agreement with the Shelter
Management Agency responsible for running the shelter will
be automatically cancelled and a new agency put in place. In
the interim, the ULB will directly run the shelter.
Social audits: State governments should organise a social
audit of each shelter at least once a year. This audit should
be carried out by users of the services, with large and active
participation, supported by schools of social work, reputed
organizations and homeless collectives. The outcomes of the
social audits should be communicated to the agency respon-
sible for quality audits.
Every shelter should be linked with a high school or
college, so that the students can engage with the residents
of the shelters, ensuring quality and learning community
service.
Chapter 5
Complementary Services,
Entitlements and Housing
Continuum
Due to their perceived illegal existence, many of the rights
that they are entitled to, still elude the homeless. Hence,
shelters should be spaces for convergence and provision of
various entitlements of social security, food, education and
healthcare schemes of the government for the urban home-
less. This convergence and provision of entitlements should
be available not only to homeless persons who are residents
of the shelters, but also to those who sleep outside the shel-
ters but are in their vicinity.
Complementary Services in Shelters
Some of the services, which can be provided to homeless per-

sons from the shelter, include:
Community Kitchens: Each shelter can also be organised as a
community kitchen for homeless people. There are different
options for community kitchens. One is to assist the residents
of the shelters themselves to form a self-help group, and run
a contributory kitchen, with some subsidisation by the gov-
ernment to ensure that the prices of meals are affordable. A
second option is for the state or urban local government to
run a community kitchen from the shelter, which is open not
just to the residents, but to all homeless persons who seek to
access its services. Food should be wholesome, hygienic, af-
fordable and served with dignity, possibly on the lines of the
Gurudwara langars, where people are seated on mats on the

floor and served as much food as they want.
Health Centres: Each shelter could also be developed as a
sub-health centre, with a multi-purpose health worker pro-
viding primary health services to the residents as well as
other homeless persons. By linking with community health
departments of various public and private hospitals in the
city, there could be weekly visits by doctors to each shelter.
Given the acute healthcare needs among this highly
vulnerable populace, such a linkage to healthcare facilities
is of vital importance. Apart from fully equipped first aid
kits that need to be made available at every shelter, active
linkages with the nearest hospital would be useful. A trained
health worker attached to the nearest government health
institution should attend to the health centre in the shelter
on a daily basis for fixed periods in the evening. In addition,
each shelter should be linked to a local hospital with adequate
travel support provided to take sick persons to the hospital.
Administration should ensure health care and counselling,
with regular periodic visits of doctors, nurses, paramedics,
counsellors, psychologists and specialists, as required.
All major public hospitals should create sufficient and
appropriately designed shelters, both recovery shelters for
recovering homeless persons, and services to house families
of poor resident patients. Community health departments of
all such hospitals should also be organised to provide both
outreach and in-patient services to homeless populations.
Another major linked service for the homeless is the
rescue and care service. Such a service provides for city mo-
bile vans with first aid, paramedics, and a widely publicised
city helpline to rescue critically ill and abandoned people.
Rescue work is critical to ensure the right to life, as critically
ill people on the streets if rescued in time, and ensured medi-
cal attention and care, have much higher chances of living.
The Rescue and Care Service should run under the
overall coordination of the CLEC. A mechanism should be
set up for each city drawing from links with existing support
Complementary Services, Entitlements and Housing Continuum 59
mechanisms run by hospitals, the health department and

dedicated social work organisations.
Clothes Bank: Each shelter could also be a place where peo-
ple can donate second hand clothes, which could be stored,
laundered and made available free of charge to destitute
homeless persons who require them.
Linkages to Individual Entitlements
Shelters for the homeless should also serve as hubs or loca-

tions for various welfare and social security schemes of the
government. Such convergence platforms would act as sites
of the following:
Convergence spaces of financing for schemes in the future:
District Planning Committees shall be encouraged to consi
der proposals from city level committees for developing these
sites and services through various sources like Members of
Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS),
Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) and local develop-
ment funds, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal
Mission (JnNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).
Convergence sites of pensions, cards, accounts and services:
Each shelter should act as a convergence point for all resi-
dents to access various services and government programmes
such as those listed below. The sole fact that a person is a
resident of shelter will be the basis of an identity document,
and be eligible for availing any of the schemes and benefits
of suitable government programmes. All homeless persons,
in shelters or outside them, should be automatically enti-
tled to various individual entitlements listed below, without
requirements of additional documents such as address and
birth proof:
1. Old age, widows, and disability pensions
2. BPL identification
3. PDS ration cards
4. Electoral cards
5. Bank or post office accounts
6. ICDS services
7. Admission to government schools
8. Rashthriya Swasthya Bima Yojana
9. Admission to all public hospitals with free medicines
and treatment
10. Admission against free beds in all private hospitals
with free medicines and treatment
11. Linkage to Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY)
12. Free legal aid
At the level of the programme for the homeless, it
should be the endeavour of all concerned, spearheaded by the
CLEC, to link and extend the benefits of social security and
other entitlements to all homeless persons residing in the
shelters and outside them. In particular, the CLEC and EC,
led by the Municipal Commissioner or District Magistrate
respectively, should facilitate the following linkages:
Entitlements to Identity: All homeless people will be eligi-
ble for BPL (Antyodya Anna Yojana - AAY or Priority) with
no other qualifying criteria. The absence of a permanent
address should not disqualify homeless persons for Ration
Cards, Election Identity Cards, and other citizen entitle-
ments. For these entitlements, the residential address could
include the place where they reside, i.e. the pavement, park
or the lamp post, indicating the address of the building, place
of worship or shop that is located closest to it, or the address
of the nearest PDS shop. Responsibility for making these en-
titlements possible must lie with concerned officials of these
departments as these are rights of all citizens enshrined in
the Constitution.
Financial Inclusion: Every homeless person should be as-
sisted in opening a savings bank account, or an account in a
post office close to her or his place of residence/shelter. The
concerned bank and post office staff should not only be sen-
sitized about homeless people and their issues, they should
also be made aware about the Reserve Bank of India’s direc-

tion on opening a ‘no frills account’ with just a request letter
mentioning their present place of residence, without needing
any identity or address proof .
Entitlements to Social Security: All homeless persons above
60 years should be automatically entitled to National Old
Age Pensions, with no other eligibility or document require-
ments. This should also apply to pensions prevailing at any
point of time for women headed households (widows/deserted
women) and persons with disability. Once again, all home-
less persons in these categories should be automatically enti-
tled to these pensions and other social security benefits, with
no other eligibility or document requirements.
Entitlements to Health: Health cards and medical insurance
schemes should be made available for all the homeless people
to avail of free medical check-ups, treatment and medicines.
State governments should also issue directions to ensure
that the homeless are able to access the free bed quota that
is available in private hospitals. Monitoring of these beds
and their usage must be done at the state government level
and action taken where there is a denial. The Urban Health
Missions of state governments can raise a cadre of barefoot
doctors and nurses to work on health education of the home-
less and identify and bring those who are ill, to hospitals.
Education Entitlements: The concerned departments should
conduct enrolment drives to ensure that all children of home-
less parents are able to access their right to education by
enrolling them in the nearest ICDS Centres and government
schools. For those children who are either orphans or with-
out adult protection, residential schools should be initiated
under SSA.
Entitlements to Legal Aid: All homeless people by virtue of
their vulnerability, loss of entitlements and suffering, are
entitled to legal aid. In this regard, whenever the concerned
organisations identify the need for such aid, that particu-
lar homeless person should be linked to the District Legal
Aid Cell under District Legal Services Authority. Homeless
women, children and men may be provided with counselling
services. Women who are victims of domestic violence must

be given legal aid. Visits by DLSA officials to shelters on
a monthly basis can help identify those in need of urgent
rehabilitation.
The CLEC will also serve as a nodal body for facilitat-
ing partnership with key institutions and facilities. Under
the leadership of the city level empowered committee, every
shelter will look to enter into partnerships with nearby in-
stitutions to make it a nodal centre for facilitating various
entitlements for the homeless. Instances of such partner-
ships will be with institutions like banks for financial inclu-
sion, with hospitals for health interventions, with vocational
training and educational institutes etc.
Deaths of Homeless People
There are a number of deaths on the streets in cities across the

country that are unaccounted for, and where the cause of death
is not investigated. While some of these are caused by accidents
or disease, many are also because the poor living on the streets
are malnourished and do not have access to sufficient nutritious
food. Any death occurring on the streets and any unclaimed
body must have a mandatory inquest by an executive magis-
trate as per Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. All state govern-
ments should issue detailed guidelines in this regard.
From Homeless Shelters Towards a Housing

Continuum
All shelters must be of a ‘revolving door’ nature. This means

that the shelters will not serve as final destinations, but
instead as places of healing and livelihood preparation, to
enable the homeless to move out into independent housing,
working men’s or women’s hostels, or old people’s homes, in
accordance with their aspirations and needs.
As stated earlier, homeless shelters are the necessary

first step for homeless persons to escape the disaster-like sit-
uation in which they find themselves, but homeless shelters
are not their final destination. The homeless people should
be made eligible for decent and affordable social housing
schemes. The following are some of the possible steps in this
housing continuum beginning with homeless shelters:
1. Permanent homeless shelters with amenities and fa-
cilities as outlined in this dedicated scheme
2. Working women’s and men’s hostels for single work-
ing poor women and men
3. Labour transit camps for construction workers
4. For the most vulnerable segments of homeless per-
sons, such as old persons without care and mentally
ill and challenged persons, there may be need for long
term social protection institutions, but these should
be open and voluntary, and with appropriate services
5. Rental accommodation of dwelling units
6. Ownership of affordable dwelling units in programmes
such as Rajiv Awas Yojana.
Annexure
Summary of orders issued by the Supreme Court in
WP 196/2001 on the urban homelessness and shelters
issue
1. Supreme Court Order dated 20 January 2010
The Supreme Court order dated 20 January 2010 issued the

following directions to Government of Delhi, the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation
and the Cantonment Board:
1. to set up at least 100 temporary shelters for people
living in the streets within one week;
2. to build at least 140 permanent shelters for people
living in the streets by December 2010;
3. to set up at least 500 community kitchens across the
city and provide nutritious and cheap cooked food;
4. to issue AAY ration cards to all homeless people in
Delhi with a validity of at least two months and re-
newable if they remain homeless in the city by March
31, 2010 and;
5. to file an affidavit to the Supreme Court on steps
undertaken to protect the food and shelter rights of
homeless people in the City by 15 February 2010.
2. Supreme Court Order dated 5 May, 2010
The Supreme Court order dated 05 May 2010 transmits

responses of states to the petition of the OSCC dated 25
January 2010. It demands that the same directions (issued

on 20 January 2010 to the Delhi Government Municipal
Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation
and the Cantonment Board) should be issued to all states
and state’s agencies working for the homeless. States’ and
Union Territories’ affidavits and responses were positive and
some important actions they agreed to undertake are:
1. take a detailed survey on the homeless and respond to
their entitlements accordingly;
2. build a shelter per lakh of population in all urban cen-
tres and provide basic facilities and amenities such as
clean drinking water, light, toilet and provisions for
their security;
3. formulate comprehensive policies protecting the
rights of the homeless.
3. Supreme Court Order dated 19 April, 2011
After a series of affidavits filed by the states on compliance

and progress made on shelter building, the Supreme Court
on the hearing of 19 April 2011, ordered that all states have
to put in place permanent shelters by 31 October 2011 with
all the arrangements on basic amenities in place.
4. Supreme Court Order dated 9 May, 2011
All states were directed to put up night shelters by 15

November 2011. States like Odisha and Jharkhand, which
failed to file affidavits by the date of the hearing, were asked
to file one before the next hearing. The Supreme Court issued
orders to all states that had not yet set up night shelters ac-
cording to the settled norms to set up night shelters without
further loss of time, because even during the summer and
monsoon seasons, it was imperative to have night shelters
for the homeless people. All the night shelters were to have
the basic facilities of drinking water, toilets, bathing, elec-
tricity, security and emergency medical check-up.
Annexure 67
5. Supreme Court Order dated 18 July, 2011
The status reports of shelters for some selected states such

as Maharashtra, Assam, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand,
Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Nagaland, Goa, Tripura, Sikkim,
Jammu & Kashmir and Kerala were heard. The Bench asked
these states to speed up the process of shelter building with
all the basic amenities.
6. Supreme Court order dated 20 September, 2011
The Supreme Court directed all state government and Union

Territories to inform the public about the availability of the
night shelters through print media and electronic media, so
that the poor and needy people may avail their benefit.
7. Supreme Court Order dated 12 December, 2011
On the hearing of 12 December 2011, most of the states were

seriously lagging behind in setting up of the prescribed num-
ber of permanent shelters. Some states like West Bengal,
Karnataka and Maharashtra were far behind the required
number of shelters. Delhi and Rajasthan were also report-
ed to be lagging behind and in their case, given the severe
winter conditions in the northern states, it was a matter of
serious concern. All states were asked to put up permanent
shelters at the earliest and in their absence, to at least put
up temporary shelters only for the winters, to ensure that no
homeless persons die due to severe cold.

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Shelters for the

Commissioners of the Supreme Court

Shelters for the Urban Homeless: A Handbook for Administrators and

Commissioners of the Supreme Court were installed by an Interim Order

Commissioners of the Supreme Court

First Edition: 2014

© Commissioners of the Supreme Court

Design and layout by Mrityunjay Chatterjee

Even while sustaining cities with their cheap labour, urban

cards. We estimate that at least one per cent of the popula-

Homeless people suffer substantial policy neglect not

Directions of Supreme Court

The Commissioners of the Supreme Court6 in the Writ

The Supreme Court’s interventions have been seminal

Learning from Earlier Government Initiatives for the

In 1992, the Ministry of Urban Development launched a small

state Governments after considering prevailing local

rarely came because of the invisibility, powerlessness

Permanent Shelters for Urban Homeless People

An urban homeless shelter may be understood as a safe,

homeless persons who wish to access it, protection from the

congregation of homeless persons enables them to use and

Permanent shelters, which are established in every

Shelters and a Revolving Door towards a Housing

Any programme for the urban homeless must envisage

Therefore, any scheme should focus on urban home-

Objectives of the Handbook

In order to comply with Supreme Court directions and the

The objectives of this handbook are to suggest guide-

This book is intended to assist senior government off­

The writing team is grateful for the guidance of the

Homelessness in Indian Cities 1

Institutional Arrangements for Shelters and 9

Planning for Shelters in the City I: 21

Planning for Shelters in the City II: 31

Complementary Services, Entitlements and 57

Urban homeless people are invisible in public policy, even

the city’s most marginalised residents, but across the nation,

authorised slums, to those that are unauthorised, to those

Definition of Homeless Persons

For the purpose of interventions of the government, the follow­

Despite their growing numbers and intense and comprehen-

law. Homeless people are taken as illegal elements, to be

Across cities, large numbers of homeless people are

poor from building or acquiring legal shelter and exercising

administrative rigour by the government in delivering the

agencies led to the saving of many precious lives of the most

to facilitate use by homeless citizens who have night jobs.

Many occupants of shelters are engaged in work during

not get employment on a daily basis, and therefore

The shelter should at minimum provide for basic

The Commissioners therefore sought a direction to all

Sixty-two such cities were identified under the

directed the state governments to implement them. However,

arrangements for shelters and allied services, mapping of

Institutional Arrangements for Shelters and Allied

Planning for permanent shelters and allied services for the

Coordination and Convergence for Urban Homeless

At the central level, there is a need to authorise the Ministry

This book is intended to assist senior government off

For the purpose of interventions of the government, the follow

The Executive Committee (EC)/City Level Empowered Com