T&T has a major problem with homelessness and all it takes is a casual walk through the streets of Port-of-Spain to see the extent of the problem. It is virtually impossible to walk along a block without encountering one of the estimated 300 pavement dwellers in the city.
The problem isn’t limited to the nation’s capital and vagrants are known to populate sidewalks, squares and other open spaces in most of the country’s urban centre.
Although there have been efforts to clear them off the streets and provide medical and other types of support, these have been unsuccessful.
The extent of the problem and the futility of efforts to resolve it can be clearly seen at the Centre for Socially-Displaced People (CSDP) at Riverside Plaza, Port-of-Spain. In operation since June 1991, the facility currently houses 115 people, including drug addicts, the elderly, mentally ill and people who are HIV positive.
Originally set up to assist homeless people find beds at nights, take a bath, and have meal, the centre currently houses an unknown number of long-term residents.
The challenge, CSDP manager Roger Watson told the Guardian, is finding low-cost housing for those residents who are ready to reintegrate into society.
“There is nothing outside there when they leave here,” he said.
The CSDP is located on the first floor of the Riverside Plaza car park, next to the lower portion of the East Dry River.
Just getting into the facility requires walking past scores of vagrants—not residents of the CSDP—who frequent the area, littering the compound with the piles of cardboard, discarded mattresses and garbage they use for their makeshift shelters.
Watson said the area is a haven for drug addicts. However, there is a semblance of order inside. Residents are not only supplied with meals and shelter, but benefit from a range of training programmes and workshops.
He said some residents, once they are fit enough, leave the CSDP and return to their families and communities, but regularly return for meals “because they have nothing to eat at home.”
Angelo’s story
One of the residents, Angelo Joseph, 60, who lost his sight due to glaucoma, longs to find a place to rent so he can live their with his three small children—five-year-old twins and an eight-year-old also live in a home for the displaced.
“Their mother left me. They were with me until I lost my sight,” he said.
One of the new arrivals at the facility is a woman who appears to be suffering from Alzheimers and cannot remember her address or identity. She was found wandering around in Woodbrook and was brought to the facility by the police.
However, the CSDP residents account for only a small portion of the homeless in Port-of-Spain and social workers and others who say the numbers of those out on the streets is increasing. They include children as young as ten years old, ex-convicts, and drug addicts.
“Places are few and the population that is becoming homeless is growing,” one social worker said. “A lot them head into Port-of-Spain and gravitate to centres where there are drugs and alcohol.”
The picture in Central
In Chaguanas, apart from occupying pavements in the main shopping areas, the socially displaced have also taken over other open space. Parbatee Gosingh lives under the Chaguanas flyover.
A street vendor, who identified himself as a former homeless person, spoke with the T&T Guardian as he sold soft drinks, candy, cigarettes and racks of DVDs on the Chaguanas Main Road.
“I feel the government suppose to do more. I used to live on the streets of Sangre Grande. People does run them, but I only run them when they smelling bad and thing,” said the man who did not want to give his name as he counted money leaning against a wall that smelled of urine.
Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodhan said the brough did not have a major problem with the homeless.
“In the last six to eight months, there were a few around the town centre and most of the times they appear and disappear. We continue to do beautification in areas and now as it is lit they have disappeared,” he said.
Relief by Christmas?
Boodhan’s Port of Spain counterpart Keron Valentine said the City Corporation plans to address the homeless situation before Christmas this year. He has been meeting s with Minister of Social Development and Family Services Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn about the problem.
“Come mid-September we will have a head count of the number of homeless in the city and we will meet again to assess who is drug-dependent, who is a deportee and who is socially displaced,” he said.
“My target is to have some ease by Christmas.”
Crichlow-Cockburn said street dwelling has become a major issue, particularly in Port of Spain.
She wants to bring together anumber of agancies -- the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services, the Port of Spain City Corporation and the Ministry of Health -- to try jointly to ease the problem.
The aim, the said is to “assess, rehabilitate and reintegrate the street dwellers into mainstream society.”
Jobs on the street
Many of the homeless get by with meals provided by good samaritans, or doing odd jobs around the city
Mini mart owner Onicca Hackett said she usually hires street dwellers to help her transport goods to her business place.
“They don’t really interfere unless they really mad. Generally I never notice any of them getting violent,” she said.
Hackett said that that one of the men whose services she uses he takes his medication on a regular basis.
However, not everyone is as accommodating. Bobby Kanhai, a doubles vendor, complained that scores of them stand near his stall begging customers.
“They can’t come around me though,” he declared.