KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­scrib­ing street dwelling as a wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tion, San Fer­nan­do may­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo says a le­gal team is dis­cussing the en­force­ment of penal­ties for peo­ple who breach the city’s by­law and feed home­less per­sons of the streets.
Re­grel­lo led so­cial work­ers and mu­nic­i­pal po­lice through Har­ris Prom­e­nade where, ac­cord­ing to him, there is an in­crease in street dwellers tak­ing up res­i­dence.

He said this in­crease oc­curred over the Christ­mas hol­i­days as more peo­ple were shar­ing out food to the home­less.

The end re­sult has been garbage scat­tered along the prom­e­nade and roads. In San Fer­nan­do, there is a by­law that pro­hibits the dis­tri­b­u­tion of food to the home­less on the streets.
“At yes­ter­day’s meet­ing that was be­ing dis­cussed and our corp sec (cor­po­rate sec­re­tary) and our le­gal de­part­ment will be en­forc­ing it. They will come up with a pro­pos­al on how we go for­ward with the sup­port of the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice,” Re­grel­lo said.
Go­ing fur­ther, he said there were some men­tal­ly ill street dwellers who not on­ly pose a threat to the pub­lic but them­selves as well.

For in­stance, there were re­ports of a home­less man who has been defe­cat­ing on the pave­ments and ex­pos­ing him­self to passers-by.
“Yes we un­der­stand that you want to give and you want to give back but let us do it in a struc­tured and or­der­ly fash­ion. It is get­ting worse be­cause more and more peo­ple are com­ing to dis­trib­ute food. We are us­ing this op­por­tu­ni­ty here to en­cour­age peo­ple to de­sist and con­tact the may­or’s of­fice and we will di­rect in how they can dis­trib­ute the food.”
Sev­er­al of the street dweller’s Guardian Me­dia in­ter­act­ed with were able to ac­count for them­selves be­ing home­less. They were dis­placed be­cause of fam­i­ly is­sues, pover­ty, crime and drug abuse.

Some even said they were nev­er of­fered shel­ter by the State.
An­tho­ny Dun­can, 58, said af­ter serv­ing a five-year prison sen­tence for rob­bery, he re­turned home to learn that his fa­ther died.

With a fight over the house and nine of his 12 sib­lings liv­ing abroad, he has been liv­ing on the streets for the past 23 years.

It led to an abuse of co­caine and mar­i­jua­na that land­ed him a stay in the psy­chi­atric ward of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al. De­spite be­ing re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed, there was nowhere to call home af­ter hus­tling at the mar­ket dai­ly for a few dol­lars. Dun­can said he was nev­er of­fered shel­ter by the State.
Ger­ard Bac­chus, who re­turned to Trinidad in 1997 af­ter liv­ing in the US for 10 years, said he went to Court Sham­rock Home for the So­cial­ly Dis­placed in San Fer­nan­do but was un­com­fort­able with the con­di­tions.

He agreed to be tak­en to a new shel­ter in San­ta Cruz. 
Dou­ble am­putee Er­i­ca Joseph and her hus­band Trevor were among those liv­ing on the prom­e­nade.

Er­i­ca, who needs a surgery to re­move a cyst, cried out for a new home, say­ing it was the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion that had her liv­ing in such a man­ner, that she ei­ther wants to seek asy­lum in a for­eign coun­try or died.

Told that she was the re­cip­i­ent of sev­en homes from the HDC in the pass, the last be­ing Chaf­ford Court, she said those homes were not on the ground lev­el where her wheel­chair could pass. How­ev­er, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices per­son­nel said they were work­ing on her sit­u­a­tion.
Some of the home­less peo­ple were of­fered spaces at Court Sham­rock, which can on­ly ac­com­mo­date 50 peo­ple.

Up to Wednes­day, there were 25 va­can­cies. Re­grel­lo said dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 64 peo­ple were set­tling on the prom­e­nade. There was an es­ti­mat­ed 108 around the city.
“Some of them do not want to be in a con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment, they want to be on the streets and that is a prob­lem. You have to be go­ing on evenings where you’re se­cured but the next morn­ing they want to be on the streets. They want to do what they want to do and in­dulge in the habits that they have.”
  He said they came from a va­ri­ety of dis­tricts, even from homes be­cause of the food be­ing dis­trib­uted. He again urged the pub­lic that if they want to feed to home­less, to con­tact the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion so the food can be giv­en to the home­less at Court Sham­rock or the San Fer­nan­do Shel­ter for Dis­placed Per­sons.
But there were no men­tal health of­fi­cers dur­ing yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cise, mean­ing that none of those who are sus­pect­ed of men­tal ill­ness could be re­moved with­out con­sent. 
Damien Tay­lor, act­ing re­gion­al man­ag­er for Psy­chi­atric and Men­tal Health Ser­vices at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), said an as­sess­ment will be done on some of the home­less to see if they need treat­ment of oth­er in­ter­ven­tion. Tay­lor said in some cas­es, the SWRHA may have to in­ter­vene, us­ing the Men­tal Health Act to take them against their will.
“Legal­ly, we can’t take them in un­less they want to or we have the men­tal health of­fi­cers who were sworn in and are able to bring them in. There is no men­tal health of­fi­cer to­day but we are re­view­ing the peo­ple as we walk around and tak­ing note. We are check­ing to see if these peo­ple are in our clin­ics and if they know. We will iden­ti­fy those who we feel may have men­tal prob­lems,” Tay­lor said.