Homeless women’s pigeonhole existence

Hidden away in the narrow alleyways of Old Delhi is a cramped night shelter for the Capital’s abandoned old women who call this place their home.

Enter the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) shelter in Shankar Gali right behind Delhi Police Bhawan and you confront a single room, barely 20 feet long and 40 feet wide. Paint fading away with a single swamp cooler parked in a corner, this room daily houses 22 homeless old women who have nowhere to go but here.

For 72-year-old Leelavati, this shelter has been home for the past many years. She does not remember the exact year she arrived.

“I beg alms near the mosque by the day and roam many markets of the walled city to make for my meals. I barely manage two meals a day, sometimes one and sometimes no meals at all,” she says, her eyes welling up with tears at the sense of loneliness and deprivation.

Leelavati’s memory of her family has largely faded. “I don’t remember who all are in my family. If they considered me family, they would not have abandoned me at this age. I do not even wish to talk about this,” she told this correspondent who scoured the area to find it in extreme disrepair and dipalidation.

The ground floor of the shelter building houses a library while the shelter stands on the first floor. Both present a dire picture of neglect and official apathy, with rampant signs of seepage.

The shelter has an adequate number of guards and caretakers who work in shifts but its cramped conditions pose a huge problem for inmates, most of them beggars who take shelter under this roof by the night.

This correspondent learnt that during the recent spell of rains, the shelter went without electricity for four days. “There was current running through the walls due to water seepage. As a result of this, there was no power for four consecutive days, leaving the homeless women in darkness,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia, Executive Director at Centre for Holistic Development, who constantly raises the issue of subhuman living conditions across Delhi’s shelter homes.

The caretaker of the shelter home, who wished not to be named, told The Tribune that not only the elderly people, but the staffers also face difficulties due to delays in payments to them. The shelter falls under the Delhi Urban Development Ministry.

Speaking about the residents, the caretaker said these are mostly old women rescued by NGOs. Their number rises to 30 sometimes, making it very difficult for them to have a proper space to sleep.

“We demand that the number of such shelters be increased so that the homeless can find some dignity,” she added.

The story of every other woman in the shelter home was the same. They had either been abandoned by their family or had no family at all.

1.5 lakh homeless people in city

Delhi has a significant number of homeless individuals, including elderly women, with an estimated 1.5 lakh homeless people in the city. While the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) manages shelter homes, these facilities are often insufficient to meet the actual need, especially for women, states a study based on the homeless people in the city. The DUSIB manages around 197 shelter homes with a capacity of just 16,338 people. The overall need is much greater with the sight of the homeless sleeping across Delhi’s markets, including Connaught Place, and under the city’s many flyovers common. The requirement rises during winter months when temporary shelters like pagoda tents are set up to meet the demand.