Shelter homes served 0.5m people last year

Shelter home set up in Sector I-11 can house some 200 people; provides three meals daily to 1,500 homeless people

ISLAMABAD: Shelter homes (Panah Gah) set up in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) have served over half-a-million destitute people during 2019.

“Some 550,000 poor and needy people were served free meals and beds in the five shelter homes operating in various areas of the federal capital,” disclosed ICT Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat on Thursday.

Most of the visitors at the shelter homes were migrant workers who found boarding and lodging in the federal capital a bridge too far.

He said that the shelter home set up in Sector I-11 can house some 200 people and it has been providing three meals daily to as many as 1,500 homeless people.

Similarly, around 120 people spend their nights in comfort and 300 are provided three square meals a day at the Sector G-9 -Peshawar Morr Panah Gah.

Moreover, owing to the rising number of homeless people in the cold weather, Shafqaat said that the city administration had set up two new shelter homes last month.

One of these was located at Bhara Kahu while the other was set up in the Tarnol area, where approximately 50 people were being provided with bedding. Another 300 people were getting meals.

“We are trying to expand the facility as a lot of people visit Islamabad in search of livelihood, but cannot afford either food or accommodation while staying here,” he remarked.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2020.