Gail Alexan­der

There are some 500 rea­sons why UNC Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der in­tends to go be­yond talk­ing about street dwellers in Port-of-Spain and start do­ing more about it.

Ly­der will nev­er for­get that day sev­er­al years ago when he went to the for­mer NIPDEC Cen­tre for the Dis­placed to feed the home­less, “...and peo­ple swarmed out like ants.”

 Ly­der said last Fri­day, “They were all so des­per­ate, but many, in­tel­li­gent and well-spo­ken–not crazy or drug ad­dicts. Just peo­ple who’d fall­en on hard times. Like Richard, who I met years ago, liv­ing near Guardian’s build­ing and the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry. He was on the streets for five years be­cause the busi­ness Richard was a watch­man for, burned down. He lost his job and can be found in the same spot down­town.”

 Richard and some 499 Port-of-Spain street dwellers are the rea­son Ly­der spoke on a mo­tion on the ad­journ­ment at Tues­day’s Sen­ate: the need to do bet­ter for the so­cial­ly dis­placed and the im­pact on busi­ness, se­cu­ri­ty, health and tourism.

Sub­se­quent­ly, Ly­der told Sun­day Guardian last Fri­day, he in­tends to go be­yond the talk and start­ed meet­ings last week with ac­tivists to form a pri­vate sec­tor team to as­sist street dwellers and lob­by the Gov­ern­ment to im­prove their man­age­ment.

Opposition Senator Damien Lyder

COURTESY OFFICE OF THE LEAER OF THE OPPOSITION

Ly­der, a busi­ness­man, said he be­came in­volved in 2015 with a PoS group that fed the home­less. “The enor­mi­ty of the sit­u­a­tion hit me when we went to as­sist peo­ple near the Na­tion­al Li­brary and at the NIPDEC cen­tre now closed.

“I suf­fered mixed emo­tions: a sense of ac­com­plish­ment that we could help so many. But great sad­ness and dis­ap­point­ment that we live in a coun­try of so much wealth, yet its cap­i­tal has so many liv­ing be­low the pover­ty line in qui­et des­per­a­tion.

 “You don’t need any sur­vey–you see it! As I re­mind­ed (PNM’s) Kei­th Scot­land in the Sen­ate de­bate, these peo­ple can­not af­ford a bread­fruit far less coalpot to roast it on! “

Speak­ing in Tues­day’s de­bate, Ly­der said stake­hold­ers whose en­deav­ours he has sup­port­ed–in­clud­ing feed­ing the so­cial­ly dis­placed–in­di­cate there are an es­ti­mat­ed 500 peo­ple through­out PoS.

 “Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 350 from West to South East Port-of-Spain and rough­ly 100 from the south­ern part of Stu­art Young’s Bel­mont. This doesn’t in­clude an­oth­er cou­ple hun­dred who are liv­ing in derelict gov­ern­ment ‘Plan­nings’ and de­plet­ed homes.

“Out­side our Na­tion­al Li­brary, there are 30 per­sons dai­ly that de­pend on good Samar­i­tans for food. I know many min­is­ters, when they come out of their ve­hi­cles (out­side Par­lia­ment), don’t look in­to Wood­ford Square...but sev­er­al dozen sleep on bench­es there.”   

Ly­der said the PoS busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers have com­plained about the in­ac­tion con­cern­ing street dwellers and the im­pact on eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

“One per­son pro­vid­ed be­tween 250 and 400 meals con­tin­u­ous­ly, for over sev­en years. What if they stop?”

Apart from city se­cu­ri­ty for busi­ness­es and burgess­es, he said, “Many per­sons are ail­ing. My con­sul­ta­tions in­di­cat­ed many in­stances of peo­ple dy­ing on the streets...many meet their end as a John Doe, be­ing buried anony­mous­ly.”

Members of a Port-of-Spain group say a prayer before distributing food boxes to street dwellers.

Pri­vate sec­tor team com­ing to­geth­er

Last Fri­day, Ly­der added, “We need to get be­yond talk­ing: I start­ed meet­ings ear­li­er this month with busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and stake­hold­ers in­volved in as­sist­ing the des­ti­tute and street dwellers. The ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude pro­vid­ing meals along with oth­er char­i­ta­ble ven­tures.

“The in­ten­tion is to form a pri­vate sec­tor com­mit­tee in­clud­ing stake­hold­ers from char­i­ta­ble groups be­fore month end. This will be to treat with the con­cerns of stake­hold­ers, busi­ness­peo­ple and street dwellers them­selves.”

The group is al­so be­ing cre­at­ed to lob­by the Gov­ern­ment to “be­come more ex­pe­di­ent in the way they treat with this mat­ter in a non-par­ti­san man­ner.”

He said, “I’ve met with Port-of-Spain at­tor­neys seek­ing ad­vice on pos­si­ble leg­is­la­tion for Gov­ern­ment to bet­ter em­pow­er the state to treat with the home­less. The at­tor­neys will al­so be in­vit­ed to join this com­mit­tee. Meet­ings will con­tin­ue in­to the next cou­ple of weeks.  

 “I’ll al­so raise a pri­vate mo­tion for de­bate for a Par­lia­men­tary Spe­cial Pur­pose Com­mit­tee–Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion, In­de­pen­dents–to pro­vide leg­isla­tive mea­sures, pro­grammes and so­lu­tions to treat with street dwellers’ prob­lems.”