Minister Humphrey denies Welfare Department leaving mothers out in the cold

Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey has sought to clear the air following claims by four mothers that they could end up living on the street because the Welfare Department will stop paying their rent.

Responding to the story published in another section of the press about the women, three of whom lost their homes to fire, he denied that they were being cut off.

Humphrey said that in the case of a fire, natural disaster or other tragic circumstance, every effort is made to find immediate accommodation for victims who then had to seek out long-term living arrangements.

“You try to work with the family to progress them into their own accommodation . . . so nobody at any point in time is cut off. I want to make that very clear,” he told the media on Wednesday.

“We are still prepared to pay for long-term intervention so they are not cut off.”

Humphrey added: “Welfare’s role, traditionally, has not been to find housing. How Welfare operated was if you were having difficulty paying your rent, Welfare would pay the rent. But it wasn’t Welfare’s role to try to go and find housing. We have done that; we have changed our role now. So welfare officers go out actively looking for housing. It is not the best use of welfare officers but they go out looking for housing because it has become very difficult for [clients]. And in this case specifically, we are still willing to help.”

It had been reported that the women were initially living in a hotel and the Welfare Department was paying $3 000 a week in accommodation. They were then placed in a guest house, for which the department paid $3 000 monthly for more than six months.

Humphrey explained that the Welfare Department would only seek accommodation in hotels and guest houses as a last resort.

“Generally, that is not the kind of rent that the ministry pays. We pay about $800 and, in urgent circumstances, $1 200 to $1 500 maximum. Those are in circumstances where the persons would have been assessed and deemed to be in need of welfare, and even then, [it is] for a period of six months. We work with the family to hopefully get them back on their feet and into their own accommodation. That is the process . . . but paying $3 000 is excessive . . . . You don’t normally pay for six months for what we call transitional housing. We pay that for a more long-term intervention,” he said.

Humphrey said families living in transitional accommodations are made aware from the get-go that after a while, they had to find alternative long-term accommodation to ensure the short-term living arrangements they benefited from were readily available to other victims.

“We say from the beginning, these particular facilities – guest houses and hotels – are very expensive. We ask people to help themselves during the circumstances. After six months, you should be able to, up to a year.

“I’ve noted over the last few months that persons [landlords] don’t often want to deal with Welfare for one reason or the other. Some people say Welfare takes too long to pay, so we fixed that. We have been paying a lot better . . . . We also have a paper that is going to Cabinet where we will be working with other realtors and other landlords and intermediary men to be able to help us find housing and then to give lump sums to those realtors and so on, so that the persons [landlords] won’t be dealing with Welfare,” Minister Humphrey disclosed.

He said he wanted to be fair to people in need while at the same time ensuring social services were not being taken advantage of.

“If you are working and you can pay something, then we ask you to pay something,” Humphrey said.

(SZB)