Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

The dev­as­tat­ing eco­nom­ic im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic may now be tip­ping many peo­ple to­wards home­less­ness.

The ob­ser­va­tion comes from man­ag­er at the Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons at River­side Plaza in Port-of-Spain Roger Wat­son, who claims they are now see­ing the eco­nom­ic fall­out from the virus dai­ly.

“We have a lot of peo­ple los­ing jobs, un­able to pay rent, so the home­less sit­u­a­tion is step­ping up now be­cause of sit­u­a­tions like that but these peo­ple are not go­ing on the streets, they are nat­u­ral­ly look­ing for places like cen­tres and shel­ters,” Wat­son told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Wat­son said while he did not have sta­tis­tics to show the in­crease in num­bers at his or­gan­i­sa­tion, he could con­firm that in re­cent months more men and women had been ap­proach­ing the cen­tre look­ing for help be­cause they had lost their jobs.

His com­ments come on the heels of plans an­nounced by Gov­ern­ment on Mon­day to re­ju­ve­nate Port-of-Spain. In­clud­ed in the plan will be the re­moval of home­less peo­ple from the streets, as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­di­cat­ed this will ham­per the city’s de­vel­op­ment. Once a prime shop­ping cen­tre, Row­ley lament­ed that Queen Street (Queen Janelle Com­mis­siong Street) had be­come “the toi­let of the cap­i­tal.”

A homeless man sits in a shack made from pallets at the back of the Riverside Plaza in Port-of-Spain.

KERWIN PIERRE

Com­ment­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Mar­lene Rawl­ins, a street ven­dor in the city, told Guardian Me­dia Queen Janelle Com­mis­siong Street was not the on­ly prob­lem.

“They re­al­ly have to do some­thing be­cause when­ev­er you walk­ing through the town, they leav­ing filth all over the place and that is not right for pedes­tri­ans and even vis­i­tors,” Rawl­ins said.

Claudius Leza­ma and his dif­fer­ent­ly-abled part­ner have been roam­ing the streets of the cap­i­tal city for over a decade, rest­ing their heads at nights on the pave­ment along Queen Janelle Com­mis­siong Street, cradling card­board box­es and liv­ing off of what­ev­er they find ly­ing around.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Leza­ma said he lost his home in a fire and had no fam­i­ly mem­bers to go to for as­sis­tance or sup­port. He ad­mit­ted he does not like be­ing on the street but said he has no choice.

“We does get hor­rors out here every day by peo­ple, even the po­lice but we does be ig­nor­ing it be­cause what we go do,” he said.

“It does have plen­ty wicked­ness on the street, peo­ple thiev­ing your things.”

Asked why they did not stay at Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons at River­side Plaza Carpark, Leza­ma said, “There ain’t good be­cause she can’t go up the stairs and there have no wheel­chairs and thing.”

Daniel Mc­Dou­gal, a passer­by, told us he had been see­ing the cou­ple there for a long time and his heart goes out to them. He said he hopes the Gov­ern­ment steps up and fi­nal­ly helps the home­less.

A homeless man walks past a shack in East Dry River, Port-of-Spain.

KERWIN PIERRE

At Mon­day’s launch of the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion project, Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez con­firmed that there are 400 street dwellers with­in the city. Ac­cord­ing to Wat­son, there are al­so ap­prox­i­mate­ly 133 home­less peo­ple at the cen­tre. This month alone, he not­ed that about 12 peo­ple had been ad­mit­ted.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox told Guardian Me­dia she was un­aware of any in­crease in home­less peo­ple dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, she as­sured she will be look­ing in­to the mat­ter.