Minister of Social Development and Family Services Donna Cox says legislation is coming to give Government the authority to legally remove the socially displaced from the streets and public spaces.
“Legally, we cannot forcefully move persons and that is the problem we have because if we can’t do that, at the end of the day you’ll hear that we’re not doing anything about the problem, but there are human rights issues with regards to this. But right now, we are looking at the legislation to be able to do that.”
Cox said yesterday that a committee was put in place in early 2022 to deal with this issue.
“Coming into the ministry, there were many task forces, many committees, lots of meetings but I found that we have not moved as much as we can, so what I decided to do was engage stakeholders. We met with the municipal police, the Mayor of Port-of-Spain, as many people as possible to work together as a team.”
Cox said she too feels uncomfortable with the conduct of some of the socially displaced who are sometimes naked in Port-of-Spain where, by their estimation, there are around 188 people living on the streets.
She told Guardian Media that the work of the legislative committee should be finished in the next few months.
“From this, we take that note to Cabinet, after Cabinet, it goes to the real legislative review committee, made up of the Attorney General and from there we get to the Parliament.”
Cox said she expects the law to be proclaimed by 2024.
She underscored urgency, however, saying a five-storey facility for the socially displaced is to be built at a location in South Quay and the hope is that the people removed from the streets will fill the 200-capacity centre. Cox expects that facility to be constructed within two years.
But Cox said dealing with the socially displaced is difficult, as right now many choose the road over a room.
“A lot of them made it clear they don’t want to leave their boyfriend or girlfriend who also lives on the streets and then some don’t want the restrictions so they could come and go as they please,” she said.
Cox said the legislation, which was influenced by foreign jurisdictions, will give her ministry the authority and resources to conduct mental health assessments to determine the best place for those without a home.
She added that a meeting with the Police Commissioner and Port-of-Spain Mayor is scheduled for this week.
Meanwhile, St Vincent De Paul is questioning the intended law’s infringement on human rights.
“You can’t take somebody off the streets just like that and say they have a mental issue or substance issue. If this is just talk to appease the people, I am not interested in that,” the NGO’s president, Nigel Phillip, said yesterday.
“That whole thing seems political, and she (Cox) could talk until thy kingdom comes but you need to have every party involved in this whole triangle of what you’re trying to do. How many times we try to do things and never do it right because something is missing, they need to work with the NGOs on the ground.”
Phillip pointed out that such laws banning sleeping on the streets exist in the USA.
“But when you go to the US, you still see plenty of socially displaced people all over the place.”
Yesterday, street dweller Richard Anthony adjusted the cardboard under his body as he lamented that it’s been over ten years since he had a warm bed.
“I used to be a live-in caretaker and they put the building up for sale, another man buy the building and he didn’t need me again. I used to do some errands but then I ended up on the street,” the 64-year-old said as he sat close to Guardian Media’s St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain building.
Anthony said he has three sisters but they’re not much better off than he is. The former Laventille resident said it’s a dangerous life and recently he was forced to abandon his usual spot along St Vincent Street.
“A night I was lying down on my back and a man come up to me with one big stone in his hand, it was a good thing I didn’t sleep away else I would have been dead, but I took my two hands and I blocked him and the stone broke in half and I got a small lash on my chest from the stone,” Anthony explained.
Even as he spoke, a dispute broke out between two other socially displaced people near the National Library, where one took up a stick to swipe at the aggressor mere feet from those making their way to work as dawn broke over the capital.
A passer-by taking his two young children to school told us, “You see that madness? We really can’t move them men? If I was Prime Minister I was putting them all in one of the small islands in the west.”
Anthony said the food and money he receives are provided by passersby and there’s a place near Independence Square where he pays two dollars to use the washroom facilities.
And while there are shelters available to him, Anthony said he heard some horror stories about the people there.
“It does have some kind of characters in there, not nice people at all, and it’s not like I have a drug problem.”
However, he described living on the streets as its own kind of addiction.
“Sometimes is a misery that has you here, it have some people who give up on life and it has nothing to do with drugs, sometimes it’s just misery.”
