Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

With a new suite of leg­is­la­tion in the pipeline to al­low the in­vol­un­tary re­moval of the home­less from the streets, the sod has been turned to start con­struc­tion of a $50 mil­lion As­sess­ment Cen­tre and Tem­po­rary Hous­ing Fa­cil­i­ty for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons.

Fol­low­ing the of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day, So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox told re­porters leg­is­la­tion such as the Se­nior Cit­i­zens Pen­sion Act and laws to ben­e­fit per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties have been sent to stake­hold­ers for com­ment. How­ev­er, she could not give a time­line.

“We wouldn’t want to have here ready and our leg­is­la­tion is not ready. So, there­fore, we are push­ing to en­sure that we have the right leg­is­la­tion in place so that we’ll be able to take care of the so­cial­ly dis­placed,” she said.

“We un­der­stand that there are hu­man rights is­sues to be dealt with so that’s the rea­son why we have to do what we are do­ing, legal­ly.”

Cox said a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach is re­quired from the Min­istry of Health (MoH), re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tres and mem­bers of the pub­lic to en­cour­age in­di­vid­u­als liv­ing on the streets to seek as­sis­tance. Un­der ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion, the po­lice ser­vice is not able to in­vol­un­tar­i­ly re­move so­cial­ly dis­placed peo­ple.

“Po­lice in­ter­ven­tion is im­por­tant but what hap­pens, though, it’s not com­fort­ing the po­lice when some­times they take per­sons to the hos­pi­tal or to the men­tal in­sti­tu­tion and then the next day, they’re back out. They have no ju­ris­dic­tion – if you feel to walk out of the hos­pi­tal, al­though you might have at­tacked some­body or you have a men­tal prob­lem and you choose to leave, no­body can stop you and they are aware of that,” she said.

Home­less­ness has in­creased in T&T by 13.4 per cent since 2011. Based on sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the min­is­ter, there are 254 street dwellers in Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons. How­ev­er, she said these in­di­vid­u­als of­ten mi­grate, some­times from San Fer­nan­do and even make their way to San Juan.

Thus, she said the five-storey as­sess­ment cen­tre will give the home­less a new lease on life. The state-of-the art fa­cil­i­ty will be lo­cat­ed on about a half-acre of land and will take up 62,000 square feet (about twice the area of a large man­sion) spread over five sto­ries. It will ac­co­mo­date a min­i­mum of 200 home­less peo­ple and 25 staff. It’s meant to pro­vide dorms, a li­brary, and ac­cess to phys­i­cal, spir­i­tu­al and men­tal health­care.

These in­di­vid­u­als will al­so get ac­cess to job train­ing and skills de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. There will be park­ing, a veg­etable gar­den, a hard court, court­yard, and green space as well as night and day user fa­cil­i­ties, a gath­er­ing space, halls and more.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who gave the fea­ture ad­dress in the ab­sence of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said the fa­cil­i­ty will be used to house peo­ple who are de­port­ed to T&T de­spite not hav­ing any links here.

“This as­sess­ment cen­tre will, as well, re­ceive de­por­tees, peo­ple who would be com­ing to Trinidad, per­haps hav­ing left at the age of two and three years, with no so­cial con­nec­tion to Trinidad and find them­selves at Pi­ar­co,” he said.

Sev­er­al min­is­ters, in­clud­ing En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Adri­an Leonce were present. Oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials at the sod-turn­ing were Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land and Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne. DO­MA Pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud was al­so in at­ten­dance.

The So­cial­ly Dis­placed Act, 2000 was nev­er pro­claimed and will like­ly re­main a draft un­til oth­er leg­is­la­tion are laid in Par­lia­ment.