1.5K homeless might get jabs next week but only after a grim weekend
New Delhi: The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board here is set to provide free Covid-19 vaccinations for the city's homeless population, starting with 1,500 homeless people who live across DUSIB night shelters in the Capital in the upcoming weeks.
Given the age restriction put in place by the Centre for administering the vaccines, one official of the board said that they had finalised a list of around 1,500 people across their shelters who were above the age of 45 and were willing to take the vaccine.
"As soon as the vaccination process was started, homeless people were also in line to get vaccinated. We started preparation of list and search was on among 7,000 homeless living inside shelter homes," the official said.
Bipin Rai, the member of DUSIB, said, "Earlier, we had asked NGOs who are managing DUSIB shelter homes to prepare a list of prospective beneficiaries for the vaccine and then sent it to us. There is a possibility the vaccination might start from next week."
When asked whether homeless people were ready to get vaccinated, an official said, neither the DUSIB nor any shelter home has forced the beneficiaries to sign up for the jab. "We created awareness among homeless people regarding vaccination and also told them that as per their consent, they can get vaccinated," the official said.
As per the official, homeless people have also seen the impact of the contagious disease and so most of them agreed to take the vaccine and DUSIB officials are regularly interacting with these people.
Weekend blow to the homeless:
But as the weekend lockdown comes into effect starting tonight (Friday), many homeless people who look for shelter homes on a daily basis will be dealt a blow with the DUSIB saying that they will have to comply with the orders and so will close admissions to all of their shelter homes from Friday 10 pm to Monday 5 am.
As per the official, they have been following government orders of night curfew and did not allow any new entry in the night. "But there are instances where people did not listen. Now we will be strict," the official said.
In addition to this, officials said that the homeless people who manage to get to a shelter before 10 pm on Friday, will not be let out of the shelters till the weekend curfew is lifted. "Look we have been providing food to them so there is no need to go outside," the official said.
According to DUSIB data, there are more than 320 shelter homes in Delhi which include permanent ones, portacabins and tents and it can accommodate over 19,000 people. As of Wednesday night, more than 5,000 people were currently living in these homes.
