Hyderabad: Overnight, 35 destitute persons lost their home and had to take shelter in three ambulances and two vans on the streets of Yapral till their fate was decided.
Their plight only highlights the disgraceful manner in which the elderly destitute are treated. The government has only three homes for the elderly destitute, at Bhoiguda, Secunderabad and Rajendranagar.
The eviction on Wednesday morning was a result of the civil dispute between the owner of the house in which these elderly destitute had been sheltered, and George Babu, founder of Good Samaritan at Yapral, who had taken the house on rent without informing the owner that he meant it to be used as a shelter.
Most of the homeless people were psychologically unstable. They spent eight hours hungry and thirsty, before they were at last accommodated in a tiny three-storey building called Second Home, which already housed 40 homeless persons, some of whom were blind and crippled.
The new arrivals were disoriented and had no sense of what was happening around them. When this correspondent visited, it was lunch time and they were being served upma and dal-rice by volunteers. The new inmates looked pale, thin and seemed to be in need of immediate medical attention and a healthy diet.
“It seems that most of them have not had proper meals for the last couple of days,” said a volunteer who was serving them. Most appeared to be still in a state of shock and communicated through sign language. More than half were sitting on the bare floor as there were not enough beds.
Four years ago, George Babu of Good Samaritan home had picked up beggars from the twin cities and had housed them in a rented independent house. He had not disclosed to the owner Ch Muralidhar that it was to be run as a shelter for the destitute.
The owner resented this and he approached the Malkajgiri court for redress. The court issued eviction notices thrice, but each time on humanitarian grounds the eviction did not take place.
On Wednesday, Mr Muralidhar finally evacuated the house with legal protection. He arranged ambulances and vans to shift the inmates to government-run rehabilitation centres at Cherlapally and Chanchalguda, but these centres would not take them because they were mentally unstable and the centres only took in beggars and tried to rehabilitate them.
They finally found shelter at Second Home run by Jasper Paul, a B.Tech graduate. “Initially I decided to accommodate around 10-15 people, but when I heard about their plight I changed my mind. We don’t have infrastructure to accommodate 75 people. But if I separate them in this hardest of times, it will further add to their misery,” Mr Paul said.
All the newcomers had health check-ups. Most of them were weak and thin and unsettled mentally. There is an in-house nurse and visiting doctors, and five volunteers to look after the inmates.
A doctor said, “the major challenge in any old age home is of maintaining the inmates’ hygiene because many of them are not in a position to look after themselves. Sometimes money and material pour in, but it's difficult to find people who can car for them.”
