Short Stay Home Scheme: Temporary Shelter for Women and Girls

When a woman or a young girl suddenly loses the safety of her home – whether due to family violence, social rejection, trafficking, or sheer abandonment – the immediate question is stark: where does she go tonight? For more than five decades, one quiet but significant government scheme has tried to answer that question. The Short Stay Home (SSH) scheme offers temporary shelter, healing, and a second chance to women and girls in distress, bridging the gap between crisis and long-term independence.

What is the Short Stay Home scheme? 🔗

The Short Stay Home scheme is a social defence programme that provides temporary accommodation, care, and rehabilitation to women and girls who find themselves suddenly homeless or socially vulnerable. It was launched in 1969 by the then Department of Social Welfare as a response to the growing need for institutional support for women in crisis.

Unlike permanent shelters or orphanages, these homes are designed for transitional living. The core idea is simple: give a woman a safe place to stay, heal, learn a skill, and then help her rebuild her life on her own terms. The scheme was originally introduced as a social defense mechanism to address survival and rehabilitation needs of women in distress.

From Department of Social Welfare to CSWB 🔗

For the first three decades, the scheme was administered directly by the central government. However, from 1999-2000 onwards, its implementation was transferred to the Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB), the apex body established in 1953 to promote voluntarism and work as a link between the government and voluntary sector. This shift was strategic. The CSWB had decades of experience working with grassroots NGOs and was well-equipped to manage a scheme that fundamentally relies on community-level delivery.

Who are the intended beneficiaries? 🔗

The scheme is specifically designed for women and girls who have no social support system to fall back on. The reasons they seek refuge can vary widely, but the vulnerability is common.

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the scheme is meant for women and girls rendered homeless due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism, or those being forced into prostitution. The target beneficiaries typically include:

Victims of family discord or violence: Women escaping domestic abuse, marital breakdown, or intra-family conflict. Survivors of exploitation: Girls rescued from trafficking, forced prostitution, or sexual abuse. Socially ostracised women: Those thrown out by families or communities, often without any means of subsistence. Women facing mental strain or crisis: Those who need psychiatric care alongside shelter. Destitute or abandoned girls: Young women with no family or guardian to take responsibility for them.

As a Delhi government description notes, the scheme creates a space for women to socially and economically equip themselves to face life independently.

Services offered at a Short Stay Home 🔗

A Short Stay Home is not merely a roof over one’s head. It is conceived as a comprehensive care environment where multiple interventions happen in parallel.

Shelter and basic needs 🔗

The first and most essential service is safe residential accommodation. Each home is required to maintain an average of 30 inmates at a time, with a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 40 residents. Alongside shelter, the homes provide nutritious food, clothing, and a secure environment free from the threats that drove the woman there in the first place.

Medical care and psychiatric treatment 🔗

Many women arriving at a Short Stay Home carry both physical injuries and deep psychological trauma. The scheme mandates access to medical care and psychiatric support. This is particularly important for survivors of sexual violence, trafficking, or long-term domestic abuse, where mental health intervention is often as critical as physical healing.

Counselling and case work services 🔗

Professional counsellors work one-on-one with inmates to help them process trauma, rebuild self-esteem, and plan their next steps. A Programme Evaluation Organisation study confirmed that the scheme provides a package of services including case work, occupational therapy, and educational-cum-vocational training alongside medical care and psychiatric treatment.

Educational and vocational training 🔗

Rehabilitation without employability is incomplete. The homes offer formal and non-formal education for those who missed schooling, along with vocational training in trades like tailoring, handicrafts, computer operations, beauty therapy, or food processing. The goal is to help residents earn a livelihood once they leave.

Legal and referral support 🔗

Many inmates have legal matters to resolve – divorce, custody, police cases, or protection orders. The homes facilitate legal aid, often in collaboration with institutions like Family Counselling Centres and local authorities such as the police.

Duration of stay: six months to three years 🔗

One defining feature of the scheme is the clear time-bound nature of the shelter. A woman can reside in a Short Stay Home for a minimum of six months and up to a maximum of three years, depending on her situation. This window is carefully chosen – long enough to allow meaningful rehabilitation, yet short enough to prevent dependency.

There are also provisions for accompanying children. Under the revised framework, children accompanying the mother or born in the home may be permitted to stay up to the age of seven years, after which they are transferred to children’s institutions or foster care. Ex-inmates continue to receive follow-up support from counsellors to ensure their well-being after they leave.

Implementation through voluntary organisations 🔗

The Short Stay Home scheme is a striking example of the government-NGO partnership model that defines much of Indian social welfare administration. The CSWB does not run these homes directly. Instead, it channels grants to eligible voluntary organisations that set up and manage the homes on the ground.

Eligibility for implementing agencies 🔗

Not every NGO can apply. The scheme sets specific conditions to ensure quality and accountability. The organisation must be a registered body with proven experience in women’s issues. As the Delhi government portal specifies, an applicant organisation should have facilities, resources, experience, and personnel, should not be run for profit, and should have three years of experience after registration.

This filter ensures that only organisations with institutional maturity and credibility handle a sensitive responsibility like sheltering traumatised women.

How funding flows 🔗

Proposals from new voluntary organisations are typically routed through the State Government, which forwards them with recommendations to the central authorities. Once approved, grants are released to cover recurring expenses like salaries, food, maintenance, medical costs, and training inputs. State Social Welfare Boards often play an intermediary role in monitoring and disbursement.

Convergence with other schemes 🔗

Over time, the Short Stay Home scheme has increasingly operated alongside – and sometimes merged with – related schemes aimed at women in difficult circumstances. In 2001-02, the Department of Women and Child Development launched the Swadhar Scheme, which had similar objectives of providing shelter, food, clothing, counselling, training, and legal aid to women in difficult circumstances.

Subsequently, the government introduced the Swadhar Greh scheme, which consolidated the essence of both Short Stay Home and Swadhar into a unified framework with updated norms. Many Short Stay Homes were eventually brought under this revised structure, although the original SSH scheme remains a foundational reference point in the evolution of shelter-based welfare for women in India.

Links with Family Counselling Centres 🔗

Short Stay Homes do not operate in isolation. They are expected to collaborate with Family Counselling Centres (FCCs), another CSWB-supported scheme. FCCs are mandated to provide counselling, referral, and rehabilitative services to women victims of atrocities in the family and society, and they often refer cases to Short Stay Homes when shelter is required. This network approach strengthens the overall safety ecosystem for women.

Evaluating the scheme’s impact 🔗

A review of the scheme’s performance offers a mixed picture. On the positive side, the programme expanded steadily – from only 177 homes up to 1991-92, another 184 homes were added during the Eighth Five Year Plan, with sanctioned homes crossing 360 by the end of that plan period. At its peak, the scheme reached nearly 384 homes across the country.

However, challenges persisted. The geographical spread was uneven, with certain states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Odisha hosting a disproportionate share of homes, while several regions remained underserved. Evaluations also pointed to gaps in infrastructure quality, counsellor training, and post-rehabilitation follow-up in some homes.

The human dimension 🔗

Despite limitations, the scheme has touched thousands of lives. Field reports from organisations running these homes describe women who entered as survivors of trafficking or domestic violence and left as tailors, beauticians, teachers, or small entrepreneurs. For many, the Short Stay Home was the first space in their adult life where their dignity was not in question.

Why the scheme matters in policy terms 🔗

From a public administration perspective, the Short Stay Home scheme illustrates several important principles. It shows how the state can extend welfare through civil society partnerships rather than expanding its own bureaucracy. It demonstrates the value of time-bound, outcome-oriented interventions where the goal is not indefinite dependency but rehabilitation and reintegration. And it highlights the need for integrated services – because a woman in crisis rarely has just one problem to solve.

The scheme also represents an early recognition of gender-specific vulnerabilities in social policy design. Long before terms like “gender mainstreaming” entered policy vocabulary, the Short Stay Home scheme acknowledged that women in distress require dedicated institutional responses.

What do you think? Should the government further decentralise shelter-based welfare by empowering more grassroots organisations, or is a stronger direct role for state agencies needed to ensure uniform quality across regions? And how can such schemes be redesigned to go beyond temporary shelter and build long-term economic independence for the women they serve?

References

1. https://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/asia/india/1969/short-stay-homes-scheme
2. https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s34c144c47ecba6f8318128703ca9e2601/uploads/2020/10/2020100921.pdf
3. https://cswb.gov.in/about-us
4. https://wcd.delhi.gov.in/scert/short-stay-homes-women-girls
5. https://wcd.gujarat.gov.in/posts?id=479
6. https://dmeo.gov.in/sites/default/files/2019-10/Short%20Stay%20Homes%20for%20Women%20and%20Girls%20(SSH).pdf
7. https://sswcd.punjab.gov.in/en/wcd/punjab-state-social-welfare-board-psswb
8. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=93308&reg=3&lang=2