Home­less peo­ple around the coun­try are usu­al­ly the ones who re­ly on kind­ness, gen­eros­i­ty, and as­sis­tance from oth­ers. But over the week­end, the home­less who call the streets of San Fer­nan­do their home, were the ones lend­ing a help­ing hand.

Ken­ny Bap­tiste and sev­er­al oth­er home­less in­di­vid­u­als joined vol­un­teers to clean and re­paint the Har­ris Prom­e­nade in San Fer­nan­do, where many of them now live.

More than ten civic groups and faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day to clean, wash, and beau­ti­fy the prom­e­nade.

Guardian Me­dia caught up with Bap­tiste as he asked May­or Robert Paris for help find­ing a job. Bap­tiste, 26, does not have a home and can­not af­ford rent, so he sleeps on a cot at the San Fer­nan­do Cen­tre for the So­cial­ly Dis­placed at King’s Wharf. Dur­ing the day, he search­es for work.

Bap­tiste said he was pleased to help spruce up Har­ris Prom­e­nade as his way of con­tribut­ing to the coun­try. He ex­plained that he was once pur­su­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion but had to drop out af­ter be­ing false­ly ar­rest­ed and charged. Al­though the mat­ter against him was lat­er dis­missed and the charge was sup­posed to be ex­punged from his record, he has still been un­able to se­cure em­ploy­ment.

“For nine months now, I’ve been search­ing. I want a place of my own. I even tried to join the Po­lice Ser­vice be­cause I have my five sub­jects, in­clud­ing Math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, and Sci­ence, but they told me I am two cen­time­tres short,” Bap­tiste re­vealed.

Com­ment­ing on the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project, he added, “I just de­cid­ed to show some pa­tri­o­tism by com­ing out to beau­ti­fy my coun­try. Since I can’t get a job, I still want to serve this coun­try.”

Oth­er home­less in­di­vid­u­als al­so joined the cleanup.

Keron Ray­mond, who lost his home while serv­ing time in prison, said life on the streets is dif­fi­cult, which is why many of them choose to stay on the prom­e­nade.

“Any­thing can hap­pen out here. You are open to any­thing. But there is on­ly God. Once you know God, He will keep you,” Ray­mond said. He added that fights of­ten oc­cur on the prom­e­nade, and some­times home­less men are beat­en for no rea­son.

“It’s been two weeks since I’ve been here, but I just try to stay fo­cused,” he said.

Six­ty-one-year-old Agan Roberts, who has been on the streets since age 24 af­ter be­ing de­port­ed from the Unit­ed States, where he lived for 15 years, said he was hap­py to help with the cleanup be­cause he want­ed to sup­port the ef­fort.

“I’ve been out here a long time. When some­thing like this hap­pens, I take part be­cause at least I can do some­thing pos­i­tive, and I en­joy be­ing with the youths,” he added.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Paris said the home­less pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing due to so­cio-eco­nom­ic prob­lems, which con­tribute to peo­ple be­com­ing home­less.

“This is a young man who was ar­rest­ed due to mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty,” Paris said. “He at­tend­ed uni­ver­si­ty, he is qual­i­fied, but be­cause of life cir­cum­stances, he end­ed up dis­placed. We don’t have va­can­cies at the cor­po­ra­tion right now, but I’ve asked him to come see me next week. Some­thing has to be done to help this young man.”

Paris ex­plained that the broad­er is­sue in­volves a mix of peo­ple who have fall­en on hard times, mi­grants, and those with men­tal health is­sues who should be re­ceiv­ing care at hos­pi­tal fa­cil­i­ties.

“The leg­is­la­tion does not al­low po­lice to re­move the home­less phys­i­cal­ly,” Paris said. “We al­so have an is­sue with feed­ing on the prom­e­nade. The by­law asks groups to do­nate food to shel­ters in­stead, so there can be or­der. But many con­tin­ue to feed peo­ple di­rect­ly here. We want the prom­e­nade to be safe, es­pe­cial­ly for stu­dents cross­ing from near­by schools.”

He said the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, busi­ness­es, and vol­un­teer groups would con­tin­ue to sup­port cleanups like the one at Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Any­one wish­ing to as­sist Bap­tiste can call 392-5478.