VMC sets up four temporary shelter homes to accommodate the destitute

VMC establishes six temporary shelter homes for 395 homeless individuals in Vijayawada, following High Court directives.

Following directions issued by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has set up six temporary shelter homes to accommodate 395 homeless people identified during a drive conducted in the city earlier this month.

The matter pertains to directions issued by a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice Ravi Cheemalapati while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on December 24, 2025. The Bench rapped the government for lack of shelters in the State to accommodate the homeless and directed the VMC to conduct a drive immediately to identify and shift destitute people to shelter homes.

A three-member team, including an official from the VMC and Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) and a policeman, conducted the drive, during which 395 homeless people were identified.

Currently, Vijayawada has four shelter homes, three having a capacity of 100 each and one having a capacity of 50, and all of them are filled to capacity. The six new temporary shelters can accommodate 450 people, said P. Venkata Narayana, Project Director, Urban Communtiy Development, VMC. He added that a council approval is required for setting up of permanent shelter homes, and aniticpating a delay, temporary ones have been set up for the moment.

They are coming near the community halls in Ayodhya Nagar, Jakkampudi and Seethannapeta and near the V.M. Ranga Mango market.

Meanwhile, officials from MEPMA, in association with 66 NGOs, identified 3,150 homeless people across the State. According to them, 646 people of those identified fall in the VMC limits and 252 in Visakhapatnam. The last such survey was conducted in 2017.