Shal­iza Has­sanali

Over the last three decades, the Gov­ern­ment has forked out $50 mil­lion to the So­ci­ety of St Vin­cent de Paul (SVP) for the up­keep of street dwellers in the Port-of-Spain area.

Asked how much sub­ven­tions the SVP has re­ceived from 1991 to 2022 since it took over the man­age­ment, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MS­DFS) Don­na Cox dis­closed "Ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50 mil­lion." She said, "Based on an av­er­age of 140 res­i­dents, the min­istry has been pay­ing $1,725 each month per res­i­dent" at the Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons (CS­DP) at River­side Plaza car park, Port-of-Spain.

A 136-page Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee 2022 re­port on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty chaired by Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ze­roed in on the hu­man rights of so­cial­ly dis­placed peo­ple in T&T with a spe­cif­ic fo­cus on their treat­ment and re­lo­ca­tion from Port-of-Spain and pub­lic spaces. The re­port showed that the SVP had not been com­pli­ant with the pro­vi­sion of ac­cu­rate and time­ly re­ports to the MS­DFS, which paid a sub­ven­tion of $14.5 mil­lion to the or­gan­i­sa­tion in the last five years to care for the home­less. The re­port al­so re­vealed a lack of fi­nan­cial ac­count­abil­i­ty and sys­temic de­fi­cien­cies.

In an in-depth sto­ry in the Sun­day Guardian, last week about the plight of the so­cial­ly dis­placed, a se­nior of­fi­cial at SVP ad­mit­ted they were "tardy" in sub­mit­ting their re­ports to the MS­DFS.She ad­mit­ted that the SVP's down­fall was "maybe in­voic­ing in­ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. We should have al­so in­clud­ed all the in­di­rect costs in­stead of the ba­sic (items)".

Cox, com­ment­ing on the is­sue said, "the min­istry's records show that re­ports have not been forth­com­ing to meet pol­i­cy re­quire­ment for sub­ven­tion".

She said the CS­DP was es­tab­lished in 1990 as a tem­po­rary mea­sure to serve the street-dwelling pop­u­la­tion in the cap­i­tal city.

"Ad­mit­ted­ly, the CS­DP was not pur­pose-built, but rather retro­fit­ted to pro­vide a ba­sic lev­el of care that was crit­i­cal­ly need­ed at the time."

Al­so, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and prop­er care could not be suc­cess­ful­ly pro­vid­ed at the fa­cil­i­ty.

The CS­DP gets set to close its doors on 72 so­cial­ly dis­placed peo­ple on Tues­day.

In the in­ter­im, the MS­DFS has of­fered com­mu­ni­ty care pro­grammes, train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rental as­sis­tance to the street dwellers who will be af­fect­ed.

The re­lo­ca­tion has not been sit­ting well with the home­less.

The shut­down of the five-storey build­ing comes on the heels of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee 2022 re­port.

SVP has come un­der heavy scruti­ny by the MS­DFS for the way they han­dled the mil­lions of dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to man­age the CS­DP.

The MS­DFS has di­rect over­sight of the fa­cil­i­ty, which can ac­com­mo­date 200 clients.

Ca­paro prop­er­ty be­ing out­fit­ted to train 30 home­less fe­males for 3 months

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sent by Sun­day Guardian re­gard­ing the re­port and an up­date on the home­less, Cox viewed the CS­DP's clo­sure as "an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­tive­ly re­ha­bil­i­tate and em­pow­er per­sons to­wards a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life".

Of the 72 street dwellers at CS­DP, Cox ad­mit­ted that some res­i­dents have re­fused to en­gage of­fi­cers of her min­istry, while oth­ers have left on their own.

"But the num­ber is sub­ject to change as per­sons are still be­ing re­lo­cat­ed or leave vol­un­tar­i­ly. Yes, a num­ber of the res­i­dents re­fused to be en­gaged. The num­ber is flu­id but to date, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 res­i­dents re­fused to en­gage of­fi­cers of the min­istry. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13 res­i­dents have al­so left CS­DP of their own vo­li­tion."

Of those who want to be re­lo­cat­ed, six res­i­dents ac­cept­ed the com­mu­ni­ty care pro­gramme, while five were in­clined to train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. An­oth­er five res­i­dents will join a train­ing pro­gramme at a lat­er date.

"Arrange­ments are cur­rent­ly be­ing made with our stake­hold­ers to ac­com­mo­date 32 res­i­dents with sub­stance abuse is­sues and 17 res­i­dents with men­tal health chal­lenges who re­quire long-term care and are will­ing to ac­cept same."

On­ly one per­son ap­plied for rental as­sis­tance. A re­cip­i­ent of rental as­sis­tance can col­lect a month­ly grant of $2,500 for three months. This may be ex­tend­ed for an ad­di­tion­al three months, de­pend­ing on their sit­u­a­tion.

"Fol­low­ing as­sess­ments, some res­i­dents of CS­DP may be of­fered sup­port to ac­cess long-term fa­cil­i­ties or re­ferred to low-cost rentals at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. Such re­fer­rals fa­cil­i­tate in­de­pen­dent liv­ing," Cox said.

The min­istry’s so­cial work­ers, Cox ad­mit­ted, have al­so been work­ing with clients to ob­tain their na­tion­al doc­u­men­ta­tion.

"Dur­ing the cur­rent re­lo­ca­tion ex­er­cise, res­i­dents from CS­DP who are rec­om­mend­ed for in­de­pen­dent liv­ing were en­cour­aged to seek al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion and of­fered fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance through the min­istry’s grants sys­tem, once re­lo­cat­ed."

With time run­ning out, Cox said the min­istry ex­pects the res­i­dents to take full ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ty and ap­ply on or be­fore the dead­line date.

A sur­vey con­duct­ed by the MS­DFS in April 2022 found there were 286 street dwellers in Port-of-Spain and its en­vi­rons.

For many years, Cox said, the min­istry had been search­ing for suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion for the home­less but faced sys­temic chal­lenges in­clud­ing de­fi­cien­cies with the pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive frame­work which im­pact­ed their qual­i­ty of care.

"There­fore, al­ter­na­tive op­tions have been iden­ti­fied to pro­vide an im­proved qual­i­ty of life for the dis­placed pop­u­la­tion."

These in­clude the re­fur­bish­ing and out­fit­ting of a Ca­paro prop­er­ty to ac­com­mo­date 30 home­less fe­males to be trained for three months to se­cure em­ploy­ment. Cox said works are cur­rent­ly on­go­ing at this fa­cil­i­ty.

"The min­istry ap­prox­i­mates that $2.8 mil­lion will be spent to ren­o­vate and fur­nish the Ca­paro fa­cil­i­ty.

"At this stage, op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty is pri­mar­i­ly de­pen­dent up­on the ac­qui­si­tion of a suit­able en­ti­ty and man­age­r­i­al struc­ture to suc­cess­ful­ly man­age it. RFP (Re­quest for Pro­pos­als) was is­sued, but no bids were re­ceived. The RF­Ps have since been re-is­sued and we are look­ing for­ward to hir­ing the most suit­able bid­der so that we can be­gin op­er­at­ing the fa­cil­i­ty."

She al­so dis­closed that they were fi­nal­is­ing arrange­ments for the use of a South prop­er­ty as a tran­si­tion­al house.

The re­port al­so stat­ed a tran­si­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty will be es­tab­lished in Port-of-Spain to ac­com­mo­date peo­ple cur­rent­ly housed at the CS­DP while a per­ma­nent as­sess­ment and so­cial­ly dis­placed cen­tre will be con­struct­ed with com­ple­tion to take place with­in 18 to 24 months.

"The min­istry is at present at­tempt­ing to source a suit­able site or lo­ca­tion at which street dwellers will be tem­porar­i­ly housed, as­sessed and placed in­to ac­com­mo­da­tion and or train­ing that caters to their in­di­vid­ual needs," Cox said.

Cox said the min­istry was com­mit­ted to find­ing so­lu­tions to this "in­tractable prob­lem" and was look­ing for­ward to the day when home­less­ness will be a thing of the past.