City Administrator William Ablong has admitted the City government of Dumaguete is having a hard time finding a more permanent solution to the problem of vagrancy and mendicancy in the city.
This, even as he and other local officials met on Tuesday to lay out firmer plans on the sustainability of a project that the City government has embarked on to minimize the number of street people in Dumaguete.
According to Ablong, the biggest problem the City government is facing is finding a shelter, whether permanent or temporary, for beggars, street children, the nomadic Badjaos and other ethnic groups like the Ata to keep them off the streets.
He said last Friday’s initial activity in rounding up these people were to document and profile them and encourage them to engage in other livelihood activities instead of just merely relying on alms from kind-hearted donors.
Ablong also noted that some of these people, such as the Badjaos, are “seasonal”, and do not stay in the City for longer periods.
Also, it is impossible for the City to file appropriate charges against them for violation of the anti-mendicancy law considering their impoverished financial capabilities.
But he assured that the City government will continue to find ways to provide these people with alternative means of income, but he also admitted it will not be an easy task.
Many of them are already used to their old ways and begging such that even if they were offered a permanent shelter, access to education and alternate sources of income, many of them would still insist on living off the streets from dole-outs, he added. (PNA)
