Volunteers at the sleep out in front of Town Hall on Saturday night
BENGALURU: In solidarity with the homeless in Bengaluru, nearly two hundred volunteers gathered outside the Town Hall for a sleep out on Saturday night. The event was organised as part of the World’s Big Sleep Out, an initiative where
volunteers in over 60 countries hit the streets with sleeping bags and other paraphernalia on the night of December 7 to end homelessness.
It is estimated that around 5,000 people sleep on the streets in Bengaluru, 76,000 in Karnataka and 70 lakh in India.
Rajani SS, a consultant of Impact Indian Consortium and a volunteer at the Bengaluru sleep out, urged authorities to build shelters for the homeless in the city. A Supreme Court order mandates that a city with a population of over one
lakh should have a shelter home. “Bengaluru, with a population of 1.2 crore, has only nine centres. This is inadequate and we demand the state government to open 50 additional shelters,” she said.
