A LIVELIHOOD training will be provided to the individuals who were rescued by the Cebu City Government from the city streets, assured Mayor Edgardo Labella.

Labella has instructed the Department of Manpower Development and Placement (DMDP) to provide livelihood training to those qualified individuals.

The Anti-Mendicancy Office has been assessing the rescued individuals if they are qualified for the training programs.

“Those who are trainable, we have instructed the DMDP head Mrs. Daluz to provide livelihood training,” said Labella.

Labella did not say what the included livelihood programs of the DMDP are.

The DMDP has launched its vocational trainings for the displaced workers to learn new skills amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the effort of rescuing street dwellers, Labella expects that those individuals will still go back to the city streets, thus, he instructed the implementing offices to continue conducting operations to at least reduce the number of street dwellers.

“This has been a many-decade problem of the City Government and I think during our watch, that if we cannot totally eradicate them, we can reduce it to the optimum,” said Labella.

Labella will also coordinate with the church in making the concerned individuals understand that they need to go back to their houses, instead of staying on the sidewalks.

Labella ordered the rescue operation of the street dwellers because every Christmas season, many homeless and vagrants loiter in the city to beg for money.

Labella said loitering street dwellers have become a grave concern now because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

SunStar Cebu tried to reach Anti-Mendicancy officials for specific breakdown of those rescued individuals, however, phone calls were left unanswered. (JJL, PAC)