Beyond Temporary Shelters: Protecting Homeless Populations

Beyond Temporary Shelters: Protecting Homeless Populations

Lima Municipality, covid tent cleaning

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the vulnerability of homeless populations across the globe, given their precarious living and health conditions. The Municipality of Lima deployed a quick response to address this issue by transforming a bull ring into “La Casa de Todos” shelter to provide roof, food and basic healthcare. Looking ahead, securing sustainable protection for this vulnerable population calls for a shift from responsive to structured policies; the main strategies to consider include intensive coordination between institutions, improved data collection to avoid systematically missing certain populations and provision of sanitary resources.

 

Read the full memo.

 



Client: Government of the Municipality of Lima, Republic of Peru

Authors: Social Protection Study Group (Lucciana Alvarez Ruiz, Daniela Britto Falcón, Jossie Fahsbender, Pankhuri Jha, Eki Ramadhan, Rohan Sandhu, and Montserrat Trujillo San Vicente, graduate students from the Master's in Public Administration and International Development at Harvard Kennedy School)

Advisor: Rema Hanna