THE Quezon City government will soon build a halfway house or transition house for senior citizens who have been abandoned and neglected by their families.
The facility, provided for under an ordinance approved by Mayor Herbert Bautista early this year, highlights the city government’s effort to provide a comprehensive health care and rehabilitation program for senior citizens, especially the abandoned and homeless.
An unutilized property of the city will be converted into the halfway house. To be run by the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs and the Social Services Development Department, it will help neglected senior citizens contact their relatives and arrange their official transfer to appropriate institutions for permanent custody and care.
The ordinance, to be known as the Quezon City Senior Citizens’ Shelter Home Ordinance of 2016, says no senior citizen shall be admitted or confined in a temporary shelter home in the city for a period longer than two weeks.
A senior citizen who remains unattended by relatives beyond that fortnight will be referred to other institutions, including the Kalinga Day Center for the Elderly.
Referrals for transfer shall be coordinated with the city’s Social Services Development Department, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Home for the Aged, and other national and local agencies concerned.