Gonzalo Civila, who heads the Ministry of Social Development (Mides) that they have expanded capacities and opened new shelters.

There are more than two thousand requests per day, he said when commenting on the death of a 56 year old man who lived in such conditions and whose body was discovered by neighbors in the Buceo neighborhood of the capital.

He is the fourth homeless person to die since May 24.

Civila also informed that there are more than 150 cases of compulsory internment.

This is in compliance with a law in force since August 26 which establishes the compulsory hospitalization of people living outdoors and the existence of risks for their health or for third parties.

The senior official acknowledged that the Mides mobile teams are insufficient to deal with the huge number of citizen alerts about vulnerable people.

“The system prioritizes the alerts according to what the population itself reports about people who are on the street and orders the attention concerning those priorities,” he explained.

“We are having in these days a peak of demand in shelters,” he emphasized.

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