Beijing will launch a citywide winter campaign to send homeless people to shelters or back to their hometowns.

Officials from 18 shelters will search for homeless people around the city starting Nov. 20 night and tips from the public are welcome, Beijing Times reported.

Homeless people suffer in the cold winter and temperatures have been dropping in the capital, said the Beijing Social Assistance Center.

Officials will persuade vagrants to move to the shelters, contact family members in other provinces and buy tickets to send them home.

The city has helped about 57,000 vagrants since August 2003, the report said.

(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2008)