Shelter ‘to help get homeless back on their feet’

When Kemar Saffrey opens the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness’ shelter on Monday, he hopes it will serve as rehabilitation refuge for those plagued by homelessness for extended periods to help turn their lives around.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Saffrey disclosed that many people were already showing tremendous interest in the shelter’s services.

Among likely clients are those who have been on the streets for a long time as well as those suddenly thrown into homelessness because of unfortunate circumstances, he added.

Saffrey said: “Most of the persons looking to use the shelter are from the St. Michael and Christ Church areas which have traditionally been problematic.

“But we are also working with a number of other NGOs who would be able to use the shelter for their purposes as well.

“So if Verdun House, for instance, has people who, after their rehabilitation programme find themselves homeless after the rehab programme, they would be welcomed.”

He added that the women in particular had been reaching out to the organization for shelter months in advance.

He told Barbados TODAY: “The section for women will be close to capacity from Monday for sure because we have already had a number of women that are on the list that came before that wanted to use the shelter before it was ready.

“We do have a large number of men but we will now have to see if they will show up in the same numbers.”

But Saffrey stressed the Spry Street building is not intended to be a residential centre, but rather a place where people can sleep at night and be assisted by staff during the day with acquiring the necessary tools for reintegration into society.

He explained: “The whole idea is not to just focus on the person sleeping there but to focus on getting people back into mainstream society as fast as possible.

“It will still serve as a reintegration or rehabilitation organization and all of the people sleeping there will be expected to try to get back into society.

“It is not a residential programme, so you are not guaranteed a bed every night. It’s a first come, first served situation.

“You are not guaranteed the same bed tomorrow night that you slept in tonight. We want to be able to run programmes and there is a rehabilitation-residential programme in the building.”

Based on preliminary indications, the section allotted for women could be close to capacity on the first night.

Although administrative issues have prevented the building from being operational last year as a place for sleeping, Saffrey stressed it was still being used for the Alliance to End Homelessness’ day-to-day operations.

He said: “We were still offering our breakfast, our feeding, our counselling and our membership. We were still offering all of the support services, the welfare assistance and any other assistance they needed.

“We were still offering our day-to-day services and during the day, between 9.00 and 5.00 we operated as a full service organization.”
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb