Portia Simpson Miller (right), minister of local government, community development and sport, gives Dr. Denise Eldemire Shearer a hug at the launch of an initiative to develop and implement policies and programmes for the homeless, at the Ministry's Hagley Park Road offices in St. Andrew yesterday.
-Junior Dowie photo
Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
THE MINISTRY of Local Government and Sport and the Board of Supervision have partnered with the Kiwanis Club of downtown Kingston to develop and implement policies and programmes for the homeless.
Portia Simpson Miller, minister of local government, yesterday officially launched the initiative at the ministry's Hagley Park Road offices in St. Andrew.
Outlining the initiative, Mrs. Simpson Miller said it was a "comprehensive programme to tackle the issue of homelessness..."
She said the "great need now is for a central monitoring body which will develop and facilitate the implementation of policies and programmes for the homeless and also support the work of existing facilities."
Under the programme, a committee, in collaboration with the Board of Supervision, has been established to "focus entirely on the problem of homelessness in all its forms and manifestations." The committee will be chaired by Dr. Maureen Irons-Morgan, senior medical officer at the Bellevue Hospital.
SURVEYS AND RESEARCH
The 12-member committee will see to the execution of surveys and research in order to determine policies, plans and programmes for the homeless. It will also look at providing appropriate shelter facilities in keeping with the policies which are to be developed.
It will establish programmes aimed at addressing the homeless such as the indigents, substance abusers, deportees, the unemployed and the mentally challenged.
Showing the relevance of such an initiative, Dr. Maureen Irons-Morgan said that two surveys conducted in November 2003 and February of this year revealed that some 300 persons, aged 12 years and over, were living on the streets of the Corporate Area alone.
Many, she said, were on the street because of financial difficulties, had problems with relatives, were deportees, had drug-related problems, were victims of violence, were hustling or were just begging.
Ezroy Millwood, past president of the Kiwanis Club of downtown Kingston, said that the organisation decided to endorse the programme mainly because of the 1999 incident where 32 street people were kidnapped from Montego Bay, St. James and dumped near a mud lake in St. Elizabeth.
He said members of the club were committed to the success of the programme. "We will be mobilising every help that is available to see to it that this initiative becomes a reality," Mr. Millwood said.
