HOMELESS MOVE

Humphrey says plan in works to move large number of street dwellers from City streets

By Jenique Belgrave

A significant number of homeless people will be removed from the streets of the capital, according to Minister of People Empowerment and Elderly Affairs Kirk Humphrey.

Although not giving details about the measures that will be taken, he said the Government is collaborating with a local charity to address the situation as the number of homeless people in and around Bridgetown increases.

“The Government is working with the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEH) to find a solution to the challenge that will encompass accommodation but also other needed interventions. This will address a significant portion of the homelessness we see, but not all, and should be in place by month end,” he disclosed to Barbados TODAY.

Insisting that the issue of homelessness is a “complex” one, Humphrey pointed out that many people living on the street have underlying issues that go beyond housing, such as alcohol and illegal drug addiction as well as mental challenges.
He said these must be addressed for any interventions to work.

“To be successful, persons have to be willing to accept help and change some of the factors that might have led to them being homeless. Make no mistake, many attempts have been made to help many persons by family, friends, NGOs and the State,” he said, adding that a policy is being developed to address the long-term and systematic challenges of this vulnerable group.

The plight facing the homeless has been highlighted in the past few weeks as the Treasury Building, which became a shelter for vagrants after government departments vacated the premises, was cordoned off for work to begin on transitioning the seven-storey office building into accommodation. Many of the street dwellers then took their belongings and moved a few feet away to set up in the environs of the Chamberlain Bridge.
Several members of the public have voiced concerns about the area becoming unsightly with mounds of clothing and other possessions of the homeless.
BAEH president Kemar Saffrey lamented that without the relevant policies in place, there is little that can be done about the situation.
“We find that people, because they are comfortable doing what they want to do and how they want to do it where they are not subjected to rules or regulations, they will stay on the streets and there is no policy or law that can prevent this,” he said.

Saffrey added that Barbadians are inadvertently creating more issues for the homeless when they give them large donations. He explained that because of limited space in the BAEH’s Spry Street shelter, those large items could not be brought in and the homeless who had them opted to stay on the streets so they could keep those items.

“Due to a lot of the headlines of the media, people want to see if they can help and carry clothes, sheets. There were some cases where people gave beds, and that is not the solution because while I understand and appreciate that people think they are helping, they are making the situation worse,” Saffrey said.

“The general public is giving them possessions and making them protective of what they have, and these donations make the area look unseemly. We need to have some type of policy that works like other countries have, where living on the street you are not allowed to keep the street untidy. We have to get to that level,” he said.

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb