The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation has a contingency plan in place to build a care facility for those people who are sleeping on the streets in the country.
Fijivillage raised the issue with Permanent Secretary for Women Dr. Josefa Koroivueta after seeing more people sleeping on the streets at night in different parts of the capital city.
Koroivueta says that there are quite a number of people that live on the streets now.
He says majority of these people are mentally challenged.
Koroivueta says the solution is not giving them money or food but to provide them with a care facility where they can be cared for and medically managed.
He says they are looking for land and provide the facility before the end of the current financial year.
The Permanent Secretary says those that are on the streets now is the outcome of families that do not want to accommodate those with mental illnesses.
He also says that they have engaged with faith-based organizations from last year to allow those that are willing to come forward to partner with government in this initiative.
It was earlier highlighted that some people who are living on the streets have homes however they do not want to live there due to family problems. There were others who did not want to go back to their villages because they want to stay in the capital city.
