CHENNAI: The growing number of homeless and their rights found vent at a five-day campaign organised in the city by Action Aid and Indian Community Welfare Organisation (ICWO). The programme named, Wall-Street, was set up to support and highlight the needs of the homeless. Speaking to City Express during the inauguration, R Lydia, Programme Manager, ICWO, said that the campaign was born out of the need to highlight the problems faced by the homeless who have to fight for their identity in the city without voter IDs, ration cards and access to pension schemes. As part of the Urban Poor Homeless Initiative of the ICWO, reflect groups have been formed in 20 areas to empower the homeless to fight for their rights, she said.According to a 2003 survey conducted by the ‘Chennai for Change’ initiative of the Action Aid, Chennai has 11,982 households with a total of 40,533 homeless people who live in the streets. Their 2010- survey identified that 38 per cent of homeless families did not have ration cards as against 69 per cent in 2003.Twenty five reflect groups have been instituted in the city. These groups have been successful in empowering women, the most vulnerable group among the homeless, by creating awareness about their rights. “We are now brave enough to fight with officials to get our ration cards, community certificates and birth certificates,” said Bhavani, one of the members of a reflect group. Women belonging to the reflect groups who were relocated by the TN Slum Clearance Board said that they moved back into the city streets due to a host of factors that affected their livelihood. “It will be better if the government provides houses for us within the city because we make our living here, we cannot afford to spend money every day to travel back and forth to the city,” said Nithya, another member of the reflect group, who makes a living by selling flowers in Parrys. “There were no anganwadis there and we were afraid to send our children to the corporation school that is almost 25km from the city. There was hardly any space in the houses provided by the government for our family and two houses were forced to share one toilet. So we had no choice but to move back here,” she added.The women allege that they are often subjected to abuse by drunkards and miscreants who roam the city streets in the night. They have no option but to pick their battles on their own. Esther Mariam Selvam, Theme Leader, Women’s Rights, Action Aid, said that the government should take these factors into account and provide permanent housing for the homeless in the city.As a part of the theme for day one of campaign, Identity at Loss, volunteers left their handprints on a white board mounted on a wall that was adorned with posters and charts about the need to remove the stigma attached to the homeless. Colourful pamphlets about the campaign were handed out to the general public to encourage them to support the initiative.The event saw celebrities like RJ Dheena and entrepreneur cum politician Sharath Babu who pledged their support for the cause.
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