By Marlon Madden
Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey is promising that by the end of March next year, a new government policy on homelessness, including the promised 24-hour homeless shelter, will be in place.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, he said that work has begun on transitioning the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEH) overnight shelter to a 24-hour homeless shelter.
“We have been working with Kemar Saffrey [founder of the BAEH] to develop the 24-hour shelter, and hopefully we will have that in place. I saw him recently and he is fine-tuning things as well,” said Humphrey.
“The programme has started, Kemar now has to put himself in a position to be able to execute effectively. I know he has already hired most of the staff to be able to do it. He has started hiring the nurses, the security [and] the doctors on a contract basis. I know all those persons are in place and he has already started talking to persons who are homeless.”
His comments came as some homeless people in Bridgetown questioned the delay in the promised transition of BAEH from a 90-bed shelter to a 24-hour facility from October 1.
Over the weekend, six homeless individuals who regularly sleep by the old Treasury Building told Barbados TODAY they were concerned that almost a month after the promised date, the pledge has not been fulfilled.
“Why is it taking so long?” said one woman. “We don’t like that at six o’clock [every morning] we have to pack up our things and leave the shelter.”
Last month, Humphrey announced that the government would be pumping $252 000 into the homelessness charity’s operations so it could be expanded into a 24-hour facility starting at the beginning of this month.
However, declaring that “we have not dropped the ball on homelessness at all”, Humphrey gave an assurance that in addition to the work being done by the BAEH in terms of putting qualified personnel in place, a policy was also being developed.
“It has started and it will take time,” Humphrey told Barbados TODAY. “So I anticipate that it will be another three months really, at least, before we can give a complete report.
“But I know for sure it has already started, and Kemar has done a lot of the background work and the ministry is making available the resources to be able to do it because it is costly. They come at a tremendous cost to the ministry, the government and to the taxpayers of Barbados. So we have to be able to do it well.”
The minister said the biggest challenge he foresaw at this stage was encouraging the homeless population to utilise the shelter and its services, including counselling, adding that the government would not be “dragging” anyone off the streets.
“If it were up to me, I would snap my fingers and make these things happen, but the fact is that the commitment of the government is there and the commitment of the partners is also there, and hopefully, we can encourage the persons who reside on the street to be able to come into the programme,” he said.
Pointing to the wider policy on homelessness that is being developed, Humphrey said he was aware that the homeless were dealing with a lot more than living on the streets, adding that “a lot of it is also mental issues, a lot of it is drug-related issues and we have seen now a lot of break in relationships”.
He added: “I think there is a post-COVID kind of intolerance where persons, since COVID, evict family members at a rate that is different compared to pre-COVID. From our own anecdotal research, there is no reason to suggest that it is all economic-based, it is just relationship-based. That is why part of the programme that we are doing with Mr Saffrey’s alliance is in relation to counselling.”
Humphrey added that he was hoping research would soon be done to find out the exact size of the homeless population in Barbados and that the policy would be in place by the end of the government’s current financial year.
“We have started the conversation,” he said. “We want to engage the [UWI] to be able to help us develop a plan. Part of that plan of action and policy for the homeless is that we have to begin at the beginning where we need to do a count of the homeless and the reasons they are on the street. Then we will have fresh figures we can share that are reliable, relevant and timely.
“Beyond that, we will have a policy; we need a homeless policy. The other thing is that there is a Cabinet paper that will be going to Cabinet hopefully [this] week for a task force in relation to homelessness, to help us as we develop the policy and the legislation if the policy demands legislation to support it.”
In addition to the Spry Street-based BAEH, which has a capacity for 90 people, there is also the Sir Clyde Gollop Shelter for the Homeless in Greenidge Gap, Hindsbury, which currently houses some 34 men who have to provide their own food and other necessities, and the Salvation Army Hostel and Feeding Shelter on Reed Street that caters to 21 individuals for a small fee. (MM)
