The So­ci­ety of St Vin­cent de Paul (SVDP) has said it is dis­ap­point­ed with the de­ci­sion tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment to close down the Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons (CS­DP) op­er­at­ed by the So­ci­ety at River­side Plaza.

In ad­di­tion to the CS­DP the SVDP op­er­ates 11 homes in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in line with its mis­sion of pro­vid­ing care and as­sis­tance to the “poor­est of the poor.”

It said it ex­e­cutes ad­di­tion­al work in line with this mis­sion in 64 com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go, via a vol­un­teer net­work of mem­bers.

"This work has been on­go­ing in the Coun­try since 1857 non-stop! Fund­ing for work of the So­ci­ety is pro­vid­ed prin­ci­pal­ly by the pri­vate sec­tor, res­i­dents’ con­tri­bu­tions, mem­bers of the pub­lic and fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties or­gan­ised by the So­ci­ety. Monies are al­so re­ceived from the Gov­ern­ment specif­i­cal­ly for State-sup­port­ed projects such as the CS­DP," it not­ed.

As with many NGOs over the last two years, the SVDP said it has ex­pe­ri­enced re­duced fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and do­na­tions and sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased ex­pens­es pri­mar­i­ly due to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

"Over that time, we have al­so been fac­ing a new chal­lenge with high turnover of staff par­tic­u­lar­ly in crit­i­cal ar­eas of our op­er­a­tions. The So­ci­ety en­tered in­to a con­trac­tu­al arrange­ment with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1991, through the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, for the op­er­a­tion of a tem­po­rary cen­tre for so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons at the River­side Carpark in Port of Spain, un­til their rein­te­gra­tion in­to so­ci­ety. The CD­SP has a max­i­mum ca­pac­i­ty of 200 per­sons and is staffed by a Home Man­ag­er and 13 staff mem­bers."

A homeless man sleeps with a dog at Riverside Plaza car park, Port-of-Spain.

KERWIN PIERRE

It said that un­der the con­trac­tu­al arrange­ment, the So­ci­ety was re­quired to pro­vide Min­istry re­ports re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tion of the Cen­tre.

"These re­ports have been con­sis­tent­ly pro­vid­ed over the years up to and in­clud­ing De­cem­ber 31, 2021. The 2022 re­ports have been de­layed on ac­count of staff turnover as well as non-con­trac­tu­al in­creased re­port­ing re­quire­ments man­dat­ed by the Min­istry. We ac­knowl­edge and sup­port the Min­istry’s con­cern to en­sure funds pro­vid­ed by it are prop­er­ly and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ac­count­ed but this has put ad­di­tion­al strain on the re­sources of the So­ci­ety which were not con­tem­plat­ed when the orig­i­nal con­tract was struck. We nev­er­the­less con­tin­ue our ef­forts to pro­vide the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion. The au­dit­ed ac­counts of the So­ci­ety were con­sis­tent­ly pro­vid­ed as re­quired by the Min­istry with the 2018 au­dit­ed ac­counts be­ing sub­mit­ted in 2019."

It said that pro­vi­sion of the 2019, 2020 and 2021 au­dit­ed ac­counts have been im­pact­ed by the chal­lenges men­tioned and that this is be­ing ac­tive­ly ad­dressed to have these avail­able dur­ing the 4th quar­ter of 2022.

"The So­ci­ety con­tin­ues to work on over­com­ing present chal­lenges to en­sure trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty to all its stake­hold­ers and put to rest any con­cerns that may have arisen on ac­count of state­ments in the ref­er­enced ar­ti­cle. We al­so re­main com­mit­ted to our mis­sion of pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to the Poor­est of the Poor and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing this work with the help and sup­port of kind bene­fac­tors who pro­vide do­na­tions and pa­tro­n­ise our fundrais­ing ven­tures."