Cardboard tents distributed to Brussels homeless

A project in the Belgian capital is pioneering portable cardboard tents for homeless people to sleep in, a media report said on Saturday.

The cardboard tents, known as the ORIG-AMI project, can be transported by users on their backs as they seek shelter, reports the BBC.

In Brussels, normal tents are forbidden, meaning that homeless people are often moved on by police.

Xavier Van der Stappen, president of an NGO involved with the project, told the French language broadcaster RTBF that the fact that "2,600 people live on the streets in Brussels, in one of the most comfortable countries in the world is hard to accept".

Many shelters in the Belgian capital are already fully occupied by winter time and some homeless people do not want to go into shelters where they may be separated from their pets.

The tents were presented on Thursday at the Gare du Nord station, reports the BBC.

Twenty of them are to be distributed to homeless people in Brussels along with backpacks containing essentials from another NGO, l'Appel du Coeur.

Depending on feedback from the homeless users, a second production run could be made in 2019, the NGO added.

--IANS

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