STARTING next week, the Cebu City government will begin preparations for Devotee City, a row of container vans strategically located near the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, to provide free housing for out-of-town Santo Niño devotees with no place to stay in the city.
According to Devotee City 2017 chairman Roberto Cabarrubias, they will start setting up the container vans on January 4.
“Hopefully, we can already have the soft opening of the Devotee City on January 12, and the grand opening will be on January 13,” he said.
Around 120 container vans will be used to set up the facility at the lot near the old Compania Maritima building.
The facility, once opened, can accommodate around 3,000 devotees who cannot afford a place in the city.
To qualify, the devotee must come from beyond Carcar City in the south and Danao City in the north.
Those from outside Cebu will also be accommodated.
They only need to present their bus or ship tickets.
The Cebu City Council earlier approved a P1.3-million budget for the Devotee City.
Based on the approved budget, the bulk will be allocated for hauling the container vans, which will cost the city P540,000.
Other expenses include food and water for the volunteers (P299,900), cash incentives for personnel manning the facility (P200,000), T-shirts for volunteers (P112,000), some construction materials (P100,000), office supplies for registration (P35,000) and first aid medicines in case of emergencies (P30,000).
Cabarrubias said they plan to also set aside a portion of the Devotee City to house street dwellers and vagrants who will be rescued by the city.
“As we can notice, there are already a lot of street dwellers in the city now. So we will provide an area for them, not necessarily together with the
devotees,” he said.
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