LAHORE:
Most people who usually complain about the hard climate or the loading schedule rest comfortably in their memory foam mattresses in their rooms with air conditioning at night. However, for homeless people who spend their nights desperately looking for refuge as they escape police repressions, the dream takes care before they may think about complaining.
During the previous government mandate, Panah Gah or Night Refuge Houses were established to help homeless people safely at night. However, in the last three years, the Punjab government has closed these facilities, as a result of which homeless people who sleep on roads and sidewalks are exposed to hard climatic conditions during the winter and summer months. In Lahore alone, almost 1,700 homeless people have lost their lives in the last three years.
A homeless couple, Inam and Aso, who now sleep near Lal Pul along the channel, shared their experience. “A few years ago, we used to go to a shelter near the railway station at night, where we would get a bed and food. Then we went back to work the next morning. But during the last three years, the shelters have been closed. We have made a temporary place near Lal Pul. Sometimes the police bothered us, and we changed our place for a day or two. Although we can handle ourselves during the nights, the nights are our greatest enemy. The couple.
The spokesman of the Edhi Foundation, Muhammad Younis Bhatti, confirmed that the mortality rate among which they sleep on the trails during the winter and summer months have increased significantly in the last three years, mainly due to the lack of shelters. “Previously, shelters provided 8 to 10 hours of rest daily, but their closure has complicated the situation. In the summer, the paths are scorching, while in winter, the frost intensifies the cold. Therefore, there is an increase in death during these three to five months,” Bhatti said.
According to the sources of the Express PAkGazette, the largest number of unidentified deaths is reported from areas that include Data Drabar, Bhati Gate, Tibbi City, Qila Gujar Singh, Town Muslim, Kahna, Shahdara, Kot Lakhpat, Lari Adda, Mogang and Garden Town. Although more than 170 permanent and temporary shelter houses were built in Punjab, including 13 in Lahore, now there is only one functional refuge home in fine, DG Khan, Taunsa Sharif, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Sargodha, and only six remain operational in Lahore.
The social director Welfare, Muzammil Yaar, revealed that more than 50 percent of the shelter houses were initially built in collaboration with the philanthropists, but over time, most of them were closed. “Even some of the shelters originally administered by the Social Welfare Department have been closed. A shelter house has a staff of more than 10 people and serves more than 100 people daily. The government has not assigned a significant budget to expand the refuge network.
As a result, in Lahore and Punjab, the closure of shelters in the last three years has contributed directly to the increase in death among homeless people, especially those exposed to hard climate or fighting with drug addiction, “Yaar admitted.
“A significant percentage of the deaths reported among homeless people occurs due to drug abuse, which worsens from extreme weather. Many of these people become addicted simply to kill time, and in the last three years, drug abuse between them has increased by more than 40 percent,” said Syed Zulfiqar Hussain, a drug rehabilitation consultant.
Meanwhile, a Punjab government spokesman said that, although in the past, temporary arrangements were made to take refuge of homeless, the current government was working on a permanent solution to the problem.
