A 29-year-old man is now home­less and sleeps on Tur­tle Beach in To­ba­go af­ter be­com­ing a vic­tim of crime. He was struck by a stray bul­let.

Tim­o­thy John­son moved from La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do to Ply­mouth in 2015. He re­called that on May 15, 2024, he went to “buy a drink” at a bar when a dri­ve-by shoot­ing oc­curred. He was shot in the right leg which was lat­er am­pu­tat­ed. 

John­son ex­plained that af­ter los­ing his leg he was un­able to work as a bar­tender. He told Guardian Me­dia that he blames the coun­try’s crime prob­lem for his home­less­ness and his present predica­ment.

John­son claimed that he has been try­ing to get as­sis­tance from the State. He said he went to the Di­vi­sion of Health at Glenn Road, To­ba­go and was asked to pro­duce sev­er­al doc­u­ments to get a grant but was re­port­ed­ly blanked.

“They tell me I can’t get a dis­abil­i­ty grant, but my leg can’t go back, I can’t stand up for long to be a bar­tender,” he said.  John­son ad­mit­ted that he did not ap­proach the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment or any To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly of­fi­cials for help as yet as he is still strug­gling to come to terms with his leg be­ing am­pu­tat­ed and even ask­ing for as­sis­tance when he was once able to pro­vide and take care of him­self.

John­son said he was keep­ing his per­son­al be­long­ings in a lock­er at the Tur­tle Beach Fish­ing Cen­tre and was de­pen­dent on fish­er­men and good Samar­i­tans to ren­der him as­sis­tance.

When asked if he thought about re­turn­ing to Trinidad to live, John­son said he did not want to since more mur­ders and crimes oc­curred there than in To­ba­go.