International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis

Homeless shelters in urban India: life sans dignity

Piyali Ghosh, Geetika Goel, Mohit Ojha,
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Piyali Ghosh, Geetika Goel, Mohit Ojha, (2018) "Homeless shelters in urban India: life sans dignity",
International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHMA-06-2017-0057
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Homeless
Homeless shelters in urban India: shelters
life sans dignity
Piyali Ghosh
Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, Ranchi, India, and
Geetika Goel and Mohit Ojha
Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, India Received 10 June 2017
Revised 5 November 2017
Accepted 6 November 2017

Abstract
Purpose – Government of India has been addressing the issue of homelessness through shelters in urban
areas, mandated with provision of basic amenities including drinking water and washrooms. This research
paper aims to investigate into the condition of such homeless shelters in terms of importance of and
satisfaction from mandatory amenities therein as perceived by users, i.e. urban homeless poor.
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Design/methodology/approach – Data from a survey spanning a sample of 401 shelter inmates have
been used to construct a service quality performance matrix (SQPM) to analyse the importance of amenities
and satisfaction of shelter inmates out of these amenities. A priority order of these amenities for improvement
has been drawn thereafter with a customer satisfaction index (CSI).
Findings – The results of SQPM show ten items registering high importance-low satisfaction. Amenities
such as utensils for cooking and psycho-social counselling are important but not available. Priority-wise
amenities that need to be improved are: psycho-social counselling, facility of referral and transport, utensils
for cooking, childcare facilities, waste management, adequate fire safety measures, recreation space, pest and
mosquito control, first aid and kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed for cooking.
Practical implications – A total of 10 amenities have been ranked in order of priority, for which, the
government needs to define its improvement action plans for delivering maximum satisfaction to inmates of
shelters out of their stay.
Originality/value – The findings reveal that urban homeless staying in shelters are being deprived of
many of the amenities earmarked as mandatory. Existing studies on shelters in India are usually descriptive,
providing a summary of available amenities therein. This study is the first to contribute to literature on
housing by applying SQPM and CSI on amenities available at homeless shelters.
Keywords India, Shelter, Customer satisfaction index, HUDCO,
Service quality performance matrix, Urban homeless
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Housing is an economic good (Cheshire, 2004) and is considered as a fulcrum around which
stems a host of policy matters and problems related to health, education, employment and
social inclusion/exclusion (Maginn et al., 2008). Housing needs are largely driven by
population and demographic changes (Nallathiga, 2007). Hundreds of millions of inhabitants
live in deplorable, inadequate and overcrowded housing in informal settlements in densely
populated cities that have limited access to safe water and proper sanitation (UN-Habitat,
2011), thus being denied of a dignified life. Up-gradation and eradication of such informal
settlements are global challenges, and have gained emphasis since it has been declared as an
agenda within Millennium Development Goals (Aigbavboa and Thwala, 2010). International Journal of Housing
Markets and Analysis
Asia has been experiencing housing shortage and poor housing conditions in many of © Emerald Publishing Limited
1753-8270
its countries largely as a result of rapid urbanization (UN-Habitat, 2011). Except Hong DOI 10.1108/IJHMA-06-2017-0057
 IJHMA Kong and Singapore (where public housing is available to around 84 per cent of its
population [Yuen et al., 2006]), in all Asian countries, urban growth has surpassed the
availability of affordable housing. Lack of inexpensive and housing options in good
localities has pushed slums and informal settlements to spring up throughout cities (UN-
Habitat, 2011). Around half of the population in Pakistan and nearly 71 per cent of
Bangladesh population live in slums. India has registered a shortage of 18.78 million
houses; this situation might not appear as grave in terms of percentage, but in absolute
numbers, it is no less challenging.
Having a growth pattern and urbanization rate at par with a few of the fastest growing
Asian regions (India Urban Poverty Report, 2009), India has been experiencing a faster
increase in urban population than its total population. Cities in India that are already
struggling to meet the rising demand for infrastructure development are put under
increased pressure to accommodate continuous inflow of people from rural areas and from
smaller towns and other cities. Gravity of the situation enhances when those who do not get
a place in a slum have no option but to live in precarious conditions, suffering from
continued homelessness (Housing and Land Rights Network-India, 2012). Census of India
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(2011) revealed that around 65 million people live in urban slums, whereas 1.77 million live
in homeless conditions, on roadsides and railway platforms, at bus terminals and under
flyovers. There also is an urgent need for repairing dilapidated housing stock and provision
of essential services to the homeless.
In India, the issue of homelessness has been addressed by the state through policies
aiming at provision of shelters to homeless in urban areas and affordable housing to the
economically weaker sections (EWS). Here the term “shelter” essentially implies a facility
that is equipped with basic amenities that are considered important for a dignified way of
living. Commissioners of the Supreme Court (2014) observed that:
An urban homeless shelter may be understood as a safe, decent, and secure covered space, which
offers to urban homeless persons who wish to access it, protection from the elements, space to rest
and store their belongings, access to drinking and bathing water, sanitation and allied facilities,
and security and safety (pp. 11-12).
Cities having population more than 0.5 million and under the ambit of the Jawaharlal Nehru
National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM, now renamed as AMRUT [Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation]) have been mandated by the Supreme Court of
India (or Supreme Court) to have shelters with certain basic amenities. Refer to Table I for
the list of these amenities, along with their respective coding as designed for this study.
This paper attempts to study the status of these shelters in terms of mandatory amenities
on the basis of perception of users, i.e. urban homeless poor. The very idea of creating
homeless shelters has been to provide a temporary home to the urban homeless. Hence it is
worthwhile to evaluate the status of these shelters from the perspective of their end users
with regard to all mandatory amenities. Our study investigates two aspects: first, the
relative importance of these amenities in the opinion of users, and second, their satisfaction
level from the available amenities. A service quality performance matrix (SQPM) has been
constructed to analyse the importance of these amenities, as also to ascertain satisfaction of
shelter inmates from these amenities. Thereafter, a customer satisfaction index (CSI) is
developed in line with indices designed by previous researchers (Yang, 2003; Giannoccaro
et al., 2008) for an improvement action plan.
The next section presents a brief review of extant literature, including a short description
of international affordable housing/shelter initiatives by respective governments. The
primary objective of our study being assessing the shelter amenities, literature reviewed
 S. No. Amenities S. No. Amenities
Homeless
shelters
1 Water arrangements 11 Open space
2 Toilets 12 Kitchen/cooking space and equipment
needed for cooking
3 Area and facilities for bathing and washing 13 Waste management
clothes
4 Cooling, heating and ventilation 14 Utensils for cooking
5 Standard lighting 15 Childcare facilities
6 Adequate fire safety measures 16 Psycho-social counselling
7 Recreation space 17 Facility of referral and transport
8 First aid 18 Facilitation for convergence with other
services
9 Pest and mosquito control 19 Linkages with entitlements of schemes
related to social security, health and food Table I.
10 Bedding Amenities at shelters
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focused on state initiatives, especially on affordable housing in both developed and

developing nations. Thereafter a brief discussion is presented on state initiatives in India
towards providing shelters to the homeless, followed by the relevance of this study, the
research methodology adopted, analysis and key findings from analysis of data collected
through survey. Conclusions and recommendations feature next, and the paper concludes
with shortcomings of this research and opportunities for future researchers.

State initiatives to provide shelters

Access to housing features as an important agenda of governments in developing countries,
and low-cost housing has traditionally been under state purview. Private sector usually has
not been involved sufficiently in such schemes because housing affordable to low-income
groups is not profitable and hence does not attract private players (Yeh and Laquian, 1979).
The same is true for developed and developing nations alike. However, in spite of genuine
initiatives to deliver affordable housing finance, the poor remain largely alienated from
formal housing finance systems (Sandhu, 2013).

International instances
Homeless poor in developing countries are found to seek shelter in unused buildings; the
Drill Hall in Johannesburg is an example of such a building now intensively occupied by the
homeless (Speak and Tipple, 2006). The South African housing subsidy system provides
single houses of 20-30 m2 area with full services on freehold plots to overcome mass
homelessness (Speak and Tipple, 2003). However, night shelters in South Africa are
perceived as unsafe and dirty and are hence not preferred by homeless (Speak and Tipple,
2006).
Towards estimating net benefits of the affordable housing policy in China, Niu (2008)
applied the Cobb–Douglas utility function and concluded that low level of housing
affordability has contributed to inadequate supply of affordable dwellings. In Egypt and
Peru, the homeless are allowed to live in poor-quality government-owned lands for long
duration (Speak and Tipple, 2003). The poor in Philippines are encouraged by the
government for home ownership through public funds and end-user financing. In a survey-
based study to assess continuing socio-economic needs of low-income segment of the
population of Saudi Arabia and how such needs influence the built environment, Sidawi
 IJHMA (2014) concluded that most of the respondents could not afford mortgage and own a
property. Kyessi and Furaha (2010) opined that housing financing initiatives of
governments and large financial institutions in Tanzania mostly help the high- or middle-
income segment. Low affordability levels of the poor keep them away from the stringent
terms and conditions of lending institutions, because of which, micro finance institutions
have emerged as their alternative strategy for housing finance. In Malaysia sites-and-
services schemes are offered by the state to homeless households and the National Housing
Authority in Bangkok offers similar schemes to evicted slum dwellers (UN-Habitat, 2011).
Among South Asian countries, it has been realized by policymakers in Pakistan that
demolition of illegally constructed houses cannot solve the problem of housing shortage for
low-income households; hence, the Katchi Abadi (meaning temporary settlement)
Improvement Programmes launched in 1985 aimed at preserving and improving katchi
abadis (Anwar et al., 2008). Subsequently in 2001, the Government of Pakistan designed
stringent policy measures towards controlling growth of katchi abadis; such measures
included prohibition of such new settlements and rehabilitation of people from temporary
settlements located at hazardous places (National Housing Policy, 2001). A major challenge
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is unavailability of official data on the exact number of homeless population, as observed by

Shah and Butt (2011), which hampers institutional support and a proper mechanism to deal
with the issue. Consequently, there are no emergency shelters in urban Pakistan.
The National Housing Policy of Bangladesh provides basic infrastructure to people of
various income levels. It also facilitates purchase of land in proximity to place of work
(Nawaz, 2004). Shelter, basic services and employment, however, remain distantly accessible
to the increasing number of urban homeless poor and those living in informal settings, and
pose as a major socio-economic and policy issue in Bangladesh (ICDDR, 2011). The National
Shelter Policy, 1996 of Nepal considers shelter as a basic need (Mahat, 2007). Shadab-uddin
(2015) studied public emergency shelters in and around Kathmandu valley, after the
earthquake in 2015, to understand surge of displaced people and needs and demands of
earthquake-affected communities; the author observed that normally shelter management
follows the susceptible-infective-removal model, though earthquake-affected communities
may have no removal.
A substantial segment of Sri Lankan population lives in plantations and slums, and the
expanding slum population of the capital city of Colombo poses as a major challenge to the
urban planners. The Women’s Bank, a cooperative and society built institution, owned and
operated by and for poor Sri Lankan women, has concluded that most of the members lack a
decent shelter and construct their houses using an incremental or progressive housing
concept (Rizvi, 2010).

Instances from India

In India, Parashar (2014) noticed the emergence of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in
housing and also the role of government changing “from being a provider to enabler of
housing supply” (p. 524) in context of housing delivery to the urban poor.
This section presents a brief recapitulation of all the schemes formulated and
implemented by the government to look at the efforts done so far and the success/failure of
such efforts in case of night shelters. The Government of India established the Housing and
Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) in 1970 to extend housing facilities to the EWS
and lower income groups. The first National Housing Policy was formulated in 1988, to be
succeeded by the National Housing Policy in 1994, which propagated greater participation
of private sector in housing (Parashar, 2014).
 The centrally sponsored Night Shelter Scheme for pavement/footpath dwellers was Homeless
implemented in the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) through HUDCO. The scheme focused on shelters
constructing community night shelters having water supply and sanitation facilities for footpath
dwellers on the basis of pay and use in metros and other major cities. Subsequently a scheme
called Shelter and Sanitation Facility for the Footpath Dwellers in Urban Areas was launched by
Ministry of Urban Development in 1992, to provide rain baseras or night shelters to the
absolutely homeless footpath dwellers in major cities till the time they became eligible for
affordable housing offered by any of the state-level schemes. However, media reportedly found
some night shelters in Delhi to have closed down as they could not be “used optimally” (Times of
India, 27 October 2001), and occupants pointed out that these shelters were not filled to capacity
during summer and they were “too dirty for humans to live in” (The Pioneer, 28 September 2001)
(Speak, 2004). Handcart pullers and cycle rickshaw drivers at Delhi could not use the night
shelters of Municipal Corporation of Delhi, as these shelters lacked safe parking facility for
vehicles. Storage space at these shelters was inadequate and shelters were perceived to be both
unsafe and dirty (Speak and Tipple, 2006).
The erstwhile Night Shelter Scheme was modified and renamed in 2002 as Night Shelter
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for Urban Shelterless, withdrawing the component of pay and use conservancy services.
However, it had to be withdrawn in 2005, as most states failed to use the allotted funds.
Launched in 2001, the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY) was directed
towards facilitating construction and up-gradation of dwelling units for urban slum
dwellers living below poverty line (BPL). JNNURM was incepted in 2005 to counter the
emerging challenges of required shelters and growing number of slums in urban areas. It
offered two programmes:
(1) the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) Programme (for assisting 63 selected cities
and towns in extending housing and infrastructure facilities to the urban poor); and
(2) the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (for housing and slum
up-gradation programmes extended in cities beyond the ambit of BSUP).

VAMBAY was eventually integrated with BSUP.

The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP), formulated in December
2007, adopted a market approach to housing, rather than considering it to be a human right
(Housing and Land Rights Network-India, 2012). The NUHHP (2007) recognized the value of
microfinancing in housing and hence promoted microfinance institutions in housing and
self-help groups to mobilize savings towards affordable shelters for urban poor (Sandhu,
2013). The scheme Affordable Housing in Partnership under the aegis of NUHHP was
introduced involving various types of PPPs, with a focus on the “multiplier effect of housing
on other economic activities” (National Human Rights Commission, India, 2011, p. 14).
Deaths of homeless poor on the streets of Delhi in the winters of 2009 brought a new
phase of development of shelters. In the same year, another report by the Commissioners of
Supreme Court revealed the miserable condition of existing night shelters. The report
highlighted that several eligible shelter users such as head loaders may work during night,
and therefore might need a shelter in daytime. These apart, those casual workers who are
unable to get work on a particular day would have to stay in shelter during the day.
Subsequently, the Supreme Court of India passed an order dated 20 January 2010 that
mandated all state governments and urban local bodies (ULBs) that for cities with
population more than 0.5 million and covered under JNNURM shall have at least one
homeless shelter run 24 h and 365 d a year with capacity of 100 persons for every 0.1 million
population. It was also decided to equip each such shelter with basic amenities, such as
drinking water, bed rolls, blankets, washrooms, first aid, recreation facilities and primary
 IJHMA healthcare services (Commissioners of the Supreme Court, 2011). A total of 62 cities were
identified with a mandate to make their shelters functional by 31 March 2011.
In March 2012, the government announced the scheme National Programme for the Urban
Homeless that would “help create a network of composite shelters in the ULBs, with adequate
provisions for housing and food for the destitute” (Commissioners of the Supreme Court, 2014,
p. 7). On 23 September 2013, the government launched the National Urban Livelihood Mission
(NULM) and introduced Shelter for Urban Homeless (SUH) as one of its components.
The number of people in search of shelters in India is actually more than the total
population of many countries. Even though a set of programmes has been outlined by the
Supreme Court for shelters and related services including basic amenities, and state
governments have been directed to implement these, monitoring the actual progress has not
been encouraging (Commissioners of the Supreme Court, 2014).

Service quality performance matrix

The SQPM is a 3
3 matrix having nine performance zones (Figure 1). Originally developed
by Lambert and Sharma (1990), the SQPM has been modified by Hung et al. (2003).
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Researchers have used this matrix as a tool to highlight the gap between the performance
and importance of services and to measure satisfaction of consumers with service delivery. For
example, SQPM has been used in transportation to assess passenger satisfaction out of
platform-based amenities of Indian Railways (Ghosh et al., 2017; Geetika et al., 2016a, 2016b). It
has also been used to measure the satisfaction level of employees with the working
environment of their organizations. Examples include satisfaction among faculty members of
higher education department (Chen, 2011), Taiwanese hot spring and financial industry (Chen,
2012; Yang and Chen, 2010; Chen et al., 2011) and high-tech industry (Chen et al., 2007). Some
researchers have applied this matrix to analyse the performance of different tools that are used
to improve service delivery, for instance, performance of total quality management in motor
industry (Chen, 2013) and 6-Sigma methodology in internet service provider industry (Tao et al.,
2009), semi-conductor industry (Jou et al., 2010) and automobile industry (Chen et al., 2005).

Relevance of research
Homeless in India are considered to be “vaguely dangerous and intractably on the wrong
side of the law” (Mander, 2008, p. 4) and also as obstacles to the development of a city
(Mander and Jacob, 2010) by the public. In reality, these people suffer from violation of
human rights, and are also deprived of other aspects related to homelessness, like sanitation,

Figure 1.
Service quality
performance matrix
 hygiene, health and education (Prasad, 2012). In a study of socio-economic conditions of Homeless
urban homeless living in temporary shelters or dwellings in public places at the city of shelters
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, Geetika et al. (2016a, 2016b) found that most of the homeless live
with their families and have never heard of various government schemes for poor.
Geetika et al. (2017) surveyed shelter-inmates in Uttar Pradesh to evaluate mandatory
shelter services in terms of their significance; authors have also assessed availability and
functionality of significant services in such shelters. Factor analysis has generated five
factors that are named as “entitlement to schemes, hygiene & recreation, cooking support
system, ambience, and drinking water & conservancy” and findings have revealed that such
services are largely unavailable.
For the purpose of the present research, the state of Uttar Pradesh is chosen to study
night shelters. With 0.33 million homeless people, it has the maximum number of homeless
among all the states of India (Census, 2011). The methodology of this research could be used
to develop a framework for analysing the quality of shelters, and our findings can ensure
policy efficiency in dealing with shelter-based issues in context of urban homeless poor.
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Research design
The broad objectives of this paper are:
 to take stock of the condition of shelters that are provided by the government for the
destitute urban homeless;
 to analyse the importance of mandatory amenities and satisfaction of shelter
inmates out of these amenities; and
 to define a priority order of amenities for improvement.

Towards this end, a survey was conducted across shelters operating in the state of Uttar
Pradesh. Urban homeless poor who use shelters comprised the target population. A
questionnaire was designed with a focus on importance of and satisfaction out of the 19
mandatory amenities (Table I) to be provided at each shelter.
A team of investigators hired for the survey was explained how to administer the
questionnaire and were trained in collecting information from respondents. ULBs in each
selected city responsible for running these shelters were the source of location of all shelters.
The survey was conducted at different points of time; investigators visited shelters multiple
times particularly during evening and night, to meet the inmates. Questionnaires were filled
through interaction with the personal respondents, and at the end of the survey, we had 401
valid questionnaires from 27 shelters.
An SQPM has been constructed to identify shelter amenities, which the government has
to improve so as to ensure maximum satisfaction to inmates of shelters out of their stay.
Applying CSI to determine priority order of amenities also poses as a significant
contribution of this study to literature on urban housing management. The underlying
philosophy behind application of CSI to shelter amenities is to draw attention of the
government to providing amenities on the basis of a priority order. It is proposed that actual
users (i.e. shelter inmates) must be involved in deciding on which amenities must be
improved first such that they fulfil the primary needs of the homeless poor, and which ones
can be improved upon subsequently.

Tools of analysis
Service quality performance matrix. Importance and satisfaction indices for the matrix are
calculated with the following formulae suggested by Chen et al. (2007):
 IJHMA m I  min
Index of Importance ¼ (1)
R

m S  min
Index of Satisfaction ¼ (2)
R

Here m I and m S, respectively, refer to means of levels of importance and satisfaction, min is
the minimum of the scale, whereas R represents the full range of the scale, i.e. highest to
lowest. The indices are decimal numbers between 0 and 1 and the matrix is split into three
equal intervals (low satisfaction/importance, moderate satisfaction/importance and high
satisfaction/importance zones) using four scales, i.e. 0.0, 1/3, 2/3 and 1.0 (Figure 1). The nine
zones thus created are divided into four regions. These are: definitely improve, improve,
maintain and reduce. Table II provides a comprehensive list of the codes used for the zones
in SQPM for clarity to readers.
It is possible that some items fall on the boundary of two different zones; in such cases,
the authors have used the logic of maximization of housing as a social good. Thereby, items
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have been considered to be in improve zone if they are located on the borderline of improve
and maintain zones. If some items are on the border of maintain and reduce zones, they are
construed to be in maintain zone.
Furthermore, it is not sufficient to merely identify the items that need to be improved/
maintained/reduced; it is important to determine a priority order of items to be improved due
to resource constraint (Chen et al., 2007). As the SQPM just locates amenities in different
zones and does not provide any priority order of such amenities for improvement, a CSI has
been computed in the next step, assuming that the shelter inmates are “customers”, though
they might not be required to pay for any of the amenities therein. To determine priority
order for improvement in context of items located in the improve zone, we calculate CSI with
the following formula:

CSIi ¼ Ii
Si

Here CSIi = Customer satisfaction index for ith item;

Ii = Mean of importance score given by a respondent for ith item; and
Si = Mean of satisfaction score given by a respondent for ith item.
Low CSI for an item implies high gap between importance and satisfaction scores for that
item. Hence, lower CSI logically indicates higher priority of a particular item for
improvement.

Zone Particulars

LS-LI Low satisfaction-low importance

LS-MI Low satisfaction-medium importance
LS-HI Low satisfaction-high importance
MS-LI Medium satisfaction-low importance
MS-MI Medium satisfaction-medium importance
MS-HI Medium satisfaction-high importance
HS-LI High satisfaction-low importance
Table II. HS-MI High satisfaction-medium importance
Zones of SQPM HS-HI High satisfaction-high importance
 Data analysis and findings Homeless
A total of 27 shelters were visited, spanning a sample size of 401. Around 97 per cent of shelters
homeless surveyed were male. Most of these male respondents (i.e. 70 per cent) were in the
age bracket of 19-50 years; around 22 per cent of respondents between the age 51 and 70
years were the next most prevalent. Only four shelters reported presence of women, ranging
between a minimum of one to eleven. Male inmates were mostly migrant casual wage
workers.

Importance of amenities at shelters

An SQPM (Figure 2) has been constructed to differentiate between amenities that need to be
improved and those that just have to be maintained at their current levels.
Figure 2 shows that overall there are ten items (i.e. amenities) under improve region (in
LS-MI zone, to be specific) and rest nine under maintain region. Of the ten in LS-MI zone,
adequate fire safety measures, pest and mosquito control, first aid, recreation space,
kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed for cooking and waste management are
important but satisfaction from their availability is very low, whereas few amenities,
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namely, utensils for cooking, psycho-social counselling, childcare facilities and facility of
referral and transport are important to shelter inmates but they are not at all available to
them. Hence these aspects need immediate improvement on the part of the government.
Overall, there are six items (utensils for cooking, childcare facilities, facility of referral and
transport, linkages with entitlements of schemes related to social security, health and food,
psycho-social counselling and facilitation for convergence with other services) that are not
available to the inmates.
Of the nine amenities in maintain region, two (facilitation for convergence with other
services and linkages with entitlements of schemes related to social security, health and food)
are in LS-LI zone, four (standard lighting; cooling, heating and ventilation; bedding and open
space) in MS-MI zone and the rest three (water arrangements, toilets and area and facilities
for bathing and washing clothes with running water) in HS-HI. Though facilitation for
convergence with other services and linkages with entitlements of schemes related to social
security, health and food are in LS-LI zone, in reality it was found that none of these was
available to the shelter inmates. Location of both in the matrix nevertheless reveals their
importance (LS-LI).

Figure 2.
Service quality
performance matrix
of amenities at
shelters
 IJHMA Priority order of amenities for improvement
On the basis of outcome of SQPM, a CSI was constructed on amenities that fall in the
improve region. Results of CSI (shown in Table III) define the priority order of amenities that
need to be improved. Priority-wise amenities that need to be improved are: psycho-social
counselling, facility of referral and transport, utensils for cooking, childcare facilities, waste
management, adequate fire safety measures, recreation space, pest and mosquito control, first
aid and kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed for cooking.

Conclusions and recommendations

For the past many decades, the challenges of urban homelessness are being addressed by
the government through several policy measures. Shelters have been designed as permanent
structures with basic infrastructure, so that the homeless urban poor do not have to struggle
to live on the streets. However, our findings reveal that these shelters have consistently
failed to provide many of the amenities which are earmarked as mandatory by the
authorities. Furthermore, there is no system of monitoring the amenities and satisfaction
level of inmates.
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The mission document of NULM proposes that shelters should be a point of

convergence for various schemes of social security, and all homeless residing in shelters
should get priority in entitlement to such schemes. Access and automatic entitlement to
various government schemes have been proposed for shelter users because the homeless
are unable to access many services because of lack of documentary proof such as address
and birth proof (www.mhupa.gov.in). These schemes include pension for old age, widows
and disability, proof of identity for ration cards, BPL, Rashthriya Swasthya Bima Yojana
(a health insurance scheme for BPL families), admission to any public hospital and
facility of free beds in any private hospital, along with free medicines, etc. However,
findings of this study reveal that shelter inmates have no access to any such services
(psycho-social counselling, facility of referral and transport, facilitation of convergence with
other services and linkages with entitlements of schemes related to social security, health
and food). These limitations are found to be a major deterrent to use of shelters. Offering
social assistance programmes and ensuring their functioning would also encourage the
homeless to use such shelters. Towards this end, government needs to ensure that
procedural hurdles are removed and documentation process for such programmes is
eased (Geetika et al., 2017).
Childcare facilities are not available in the shelters investigated in this study; though this
amenity (ranking fourth in the CSI) has been rated important by the shelter inmates, but it
falls in the LS-MI zone of improve. Waste management as an amenity requiring

S. No. Facilities CSI

1 Psycho-social counselling 1.7629

2 Facility of referral and transport 1.7854
3 Utensils for cooking 1.9794
4 Childcare facilities 2.0087
5 Waste management 2.1711
6 Adequate fire safety measures 2.2945
Table III. 7 Recreation space 2.3451
Priority order of 8 Pest and mosquito control 2.4601
amenities for 9 First aid 2.5456
improvement 10 Kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed for cooking 2.5903
 improvement stands at the fifth position in priority order (Table III). It was observed by the Homeless
investigators that waste management at the shelters was notably inadequate. Garbage shelters
disposal provisions hence need to be made on an urgent basis. Community-based
organizations have made notable progress in waste management, involving local
co-operation (Shrivastava, 1990, 1995 cited from Smardon, 2008). Similar initiatives can be
introduced in shelters with co-operation of inmates.
Adequate fire safety measures, recreation space, pest and mosquito control, first aid,
utensils for cooking, waste management and kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed for
cooking fall in LS-MI zone under improve on the SQPM. Of these, adequate fire safety
measures, recreation space, pest and mosquito control, first aid and kitchen/cooking space and
equipment needed for cooking rank fifth to tenth, respectively, on CSI (Table II).
Kitchen/cooking space was available at the shelters, though utensils for cooking
were not. Furthermore, none of the shelters had provision for cooking gas. Utensils for
cooking ranks third in priority order and kitchen/cooking space and equipment needed
for cooking is tenth (Table II). Unavailability of cooking amenities would make inmates
rely on other sources like begging and purchasing meals (Geetika et al., 2017).
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Provisions for cooking, on the contrary, would make them self-reliant and also cut
down on their health hazards.
Threat of fire at shelters is high especially during winters, when the inmates burn wood
or waste to stay warm. Hence some means of safety have to be installed. Provision for
common recreation space (seventh rank in Table III) with television sets, newspaper, etc.
would render opportunity to the homeless to socialize and also relax.
Given that the homeless live with associated health risks, measures for pest and
mosquito control (eighth rank in CSI) must be made available at shelters. Furthermore, first
aid (ninth rank) must be provided for shelter-inmates.
Operational guidelines for shelters issued in December 2013 by the National Urban
Livelihood Mission specify need for separate shelters for men, women and families.
However, it was observed during our study that there is no separate facility for women or
families or mentally challenged. In fact, women inmates were hardly found, only 11
women (representing 2.7 per cent of total sample) were seen in spite of several rounds of
visits. It clearly highlights likelihood of safety and privacy issues. State government
must re-look into the provision of need-based shelters for women, as per guidelines of
NULM.
Water arrangements, toilets and area and facilities for bathing and washing clothes fall
in the HS-HI zone. This is indeed a healthy indication in terms of being basic
requirements of any shelter. However, inmates of some of the shelters did express
concern over the number of washrooms. Shelters are hence recommended to multiply
availability of conservancy services and supply of potable water. The government can
plan to construct and maintain community toilets in proximity of these shelters through
private partnership (Geetika et al., 2017). Pay-and-use common toilets facility with usage
charges in accordance to low paying capacity of shelter inmates could also be extended to
such areas.
To conclude in a nutshell, our study highlights the fact that mere construction of shelters
would not solve the problem of homelessness; they should be equipped with basic amenities
and should be seen as a safe and secure place for temporary stay. Findings of our study can
be used by relevant authorities as a broad guideline for improving or maintaining the
amenities to achieve the overall goal of social good.
The present study contributes to literature on housing by applying SQPM the first time
ever on amenities available at shelters for urban homeless. Existing studies on shelters in
 IJHMA India are usually descriptive, providing a summary of available amenities therein. This
research hence makes a definite contribution to the existing studies on shelters.

Study limitations and directions for future research

The most mentionable limitation of the study could be the scope of the survey, in which only
one state has been surveyed. However, the framework so developed may be used as a basis
for further research especially in states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which are
close to Uttar Pradesh as per Census records in terms of homelessness.
Another constraint of this research is the insignificant number of women inmates who
actually were present to take our survey, as an outcome of which, issues related with gender
could not be studied and analysed. Any further research can bring to light shortcomings in
provision for shelters for women, so that such drawbacks are mitigated with appropriate
policies and measures.

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pdf?ua=1

Corresponding author
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Piyali Ghosh can be contacted at: piyali.ghosh@iimranchi.ac.in

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