A cry for the homeless - Montego Bay street people need help

Mark Titus, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

While there have been improve-ments in the care given to homeless people since the occurrence of what was dubbed the Montego Bay Street People Scandal in 1999, leading health-care givers in the parish are still not satisfied with the level of support now in place.

"The situation is that we are taking one step forward and three steps backward," said Joy Crooks, nurse administrator and a director at the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill (CUMI), a rehabilitation day centre that caters to more than 120 clients.

"The majority of the persons on the street have a drug-related problem, yet we don't have a designated drug-rehabilitation facility. To restrict their movements, and without such a facility, whatever remedy is given by the psychiatric department is only cosmetic," she said.

"The social problems still exist, but the whole structure and fabric of what must be in place is not there."

The Street People Scandal saw 39 persons being whisked from the streets of Montego Bay in the pre-dawn hours of July 15, 1999, and transported to St Elizabeth, where they were subsequently dumped near a mud lake.

The incident sparked an international outcry and was followed by a commission of enquiry, but no one was found criminally responsible.

The enquiry, however, revealed the involvement of a St James Parish Council truck, rope purchased by the municipal authority, and police officers in carrying out the act.

The Government accepted liability and was ordered to pay the victims a $20,000 monthly stipend as part of a compensation package.

Mental illnesses are medical conditions which disrupt a person's thinking, feelings, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning. They include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder.

CUMI has been operating since 1990, but according to Crooks, it has become increasingly difficult to cater to the more than 120 clients seen on a daily basis as the number of sponsors and donors has decreased.

MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE

"The social services must be strengthened if we are to be effective," she said. "If it was not for the National Health Fund and CUMI, there would not be a bus to transport our workers."

According to Robert Clare, CEO of the Open Heart Charitable Mission (OHCM), most of the support to carry out the daily service comes from outside the parish of St James. "Not a lot of locals are buying into the homeless programmes. We are in dire need of more food and clothing. We also need volunteers," he told Western Focus last Saturday.

OHCM offers three hot meals and a shower to its clients at its facility at Lawrence Lane in downtown Montego Bay every day. It also runs the Refuge of Hope night shelter in Albion, where up to 50 men and 30 women are accommodated.

Dr Wendel Abel, senior psychiatrist at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and former head of the psychiatric department at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, believes the financial support given to Montego Bay since the incident in 1999 has been tremendous but needs more strategic planning.

"A lot has been done for MoBay since the incident," said Abel. "The Government has spent millions, but this does not address the homeless issue.

"In fact, 80 per cent of the homeless are mentally ill. So strengthening the mental-health capacity should be a priority, but instead, they continue to build shelters and establish feeding programmes when what we really need are more social workers to provide case-management services.

"Just as how, if you want more tourists, you build a hotel, if you want more street people, build more shelters and put in more feeding programmes," Abel said.