Prague to provide aid for homeless in winter

The Prague City Hall will found special teams to provide aid for the homeless in Prague streets and public transport facilities during the winter, said Czech councillor Martin Dlouhy on Wednesday. Dlouhy said that the aid for the homeless will be conducted between Dec. 1, 2013 and March 30, 2014 with a cost of 20-30 million crowns (about 1-1.5million U.S. dollars). The Prague City Hall is not planning to build tents for the homeless this year, it hopes to make the homeless look for social and health services and dormitories, including a ship on the Vltava River, hostels so that they do not sleep in the public transport network. "The measures are to increase the quality of the care for the homeless in winter and to coordinate all activities," Dlouhy said. "We promise that we will help everyone who will contact us. There will be no end to the homelessness as this is beyond Prague's forces." The Prague City Hall estimates the number of homeless at about 4,000 and 1,000 of them live in the streets. (1 U.S. dollar = 19.076 crowns)