T&T CHAM­BER OF IN­DUS­TRY & COM­MERCE

In mid-June, Dave Clement, di­rec­tor of Sta­tis­tics at the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO), dis­closed that a pre­lim­i­nary count by enu­mer­a­tors vis­it­ing and list­ing every per­son and dwelling in his/her dis­trict, shows the street dweller pop­u­la­tion grew by 13.4 per cent over the decade 2000-2011. The largest con­cen­tra­tion is in Port-of-Spain, num­ber­ing some 307 and pre­dom­i­nant­ly male, al­though Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing con­tends the num­ber is more like 500. What­ev­er the ac­tu­al fig­ure, the fact is that risk and in­con­ve­nience to pedes­tri­ans re­main the same. In this 50th year of In­de­pen­dence, the con­tin­u­al omis­sion, fail­ure and/or ne­glect to ad­dress these, brings health is­sues, se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and has an over­all neg­a­tive im­pact on the na­tion­al tourism thrust as we seek to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my away from a heavy re­liance on en­er­gy.

The cham­ber re­mains of the view that no new leg­is­la­tion is re­quired for deal­ing with the un­law­ful oc­cu­pa­tion and ac­tiv­i­ties on our streets, as this is the de­scrip­tion of the con­duct of those who do so. The Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act al­ready recog­nis­es this, as crime en­force­ment is yet an­oth­er con­cern of the cham­ber. For ex­am­ple, Sec­tions 4 and 5, there­of make as­sault, bat­tery and ag­gra­vat­ed as­saults, crim­i­nal of­fences. Sec­tion 45(c) deals with sleep­ing or loi­ter­ing in pub­lic places; Sec­tion 46(a) with per­sons wil­ful­ly and ob­scene­ly ex­pos­ing their per­sons; Sec­tion 49, with vi­o­lent ob­scene lan­guage or dis­tur­bance of the peace. Sec­tions 65 and 67 deal with of­fences in streets and pub­lic places to the an­noy­ance or dan­ger of res­i­dents or pas­sen­gers and Sec­tion 69, the throw­ing of stones or mis­siles. While this body of law may con­sid­er the rea­sons for street dwelling, it cer­tain­ly deals with con­se­quences. All that may be nec­es­sary is amend­ment of the penal­ties to bring them in line with the 21st cen­tu­ry, as against than 1921, when this act first be­came law! In ad­di­tion, the Men­tal Health Act, which be­came law since 1975, al­lows a men­tal health of­fi­cer who has rea­son to be­lieve a per­son found wan­der­ing at large on a high­way or in any pub­lic place who, by rea­son of his con­duct, ap­pear­ance or con­ver­sa­tion, is men­tal­ly ill and in need of care and treat­ment in a psy­chi­atric ward or hos­pi­tal, may be tak­en in­to cus­tody and con­veyed to such hos­pi­tal, or ward for ad­mis­sion for ob­ser­va­tion, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 15 there­of. Sec­tion 15 al­so pro­vides for the po­lice to ren­der as­sis­tance to the men­tal health of­fi­cer in the event he re­quires same to ap­pre­hend and con­vey the per­son to the ward or hos­pi­tal.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, Dr Glen Ra­mad­harsh­ingh, has pub­licly dis­closed that a new law is be­ing drawn for tabling in Par­lia­ment, which the cham­ber un­der­stands, will em­pow­er some agent of the State, to forcibly re­move, in­ter alia, street dwellers. He has not ex­plained the rea­son why the pow­ers that al­ready do so by Sec­tion 15 of the ex­ist­ing act are de­fi­cient and what are any oth­er ad­van­tages of the new bill. What we do know is that be­cause the new bill in­fringes the con­sti­tu­tion­al free­dom of move­ment of street dwellers, the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to have to se­cure a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion votes, to pass this bill. The cham­ber looks for­ward to the date for its first read­ing in Par­lia­ment and we hope its even­tu­al en­force­ment will not suf­fer the same fate as the ex­ist­ing 1975 Act, which ap­pears to be of no con­se­quence re­gard­ing on the per­sis­tent street dwelling chal­lenge. His­to­ry is re­plete with the names of vic­tims of at­tacks by those, who, by the very na­ture of their be­hav­iour, would overqual­i­fy for ap­pre­hen­sion un­der Sec­tion 15. The cham­ber is aware of on­ly a very few, like Cheryl Ann Alexan­der and Michelle Brew­ster, who ap­peared at a press con­fer­ence last year with May­or Lee Sing, to ex­em­pli­fy the types of in­jury street dwellers in­flict. Let us not for­get Shar­i­fa Walk­er, who is 95 per cent blind in her left eye as a re­sult of such an at­tack. Whether we en­force the old act or en­act a new one, en­force­ment of the law will con­tin­ue to be a chal­lenge. So too will be the pro­vi­sion of al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion for those mak­ing our streets their homes, un­til they can be suf­fi­cient­ly re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed to re­turn to reg­u­lar so­ci­ety and a life of car­ing for them­selves.

Min­is­ter of Health Fuad Khan has al­ready pub­licly stat­ed 60 per cent of pa­tients ward­ed at the St Ann's Men­tal Hos­pi­tal were just so­cial cas­es and did not need to be there. He claimed this was be­cause their care­givers are not pre­pared to dis­charge their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties or have aban­doned them, while the pa­tient's State pen­sions are mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed. Those who tra­verse our streets are not with­out blame. Reyes-Borel of the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment has made it quite clear our pub­lic spaces wel­come the home­less and beg­gars, whose rev­enues from alms ex­ceed $100 per day for the most in­dus­tri­ous in this sec­tor. Shel­ters of­fer them three square meals per day, a bath, bed to sleep and recre­ation. This is cer­tain­ly bet­ter than prison. For those that suf­fer mo­bil­i­ty re­stric­tions, there are even meals on wheels and foot from var­i­ous do­good­ers.

Since the en­act­ment of the 1975 Men­tal Health Act, all suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have tak­en their turn at tack­ling the is­sue of deal­ing with the so­cial­ly dis­placed. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in our cap­i­tal city, find­ing a short-term so­lu­tion to this chal­lenge is most press­ing. How­ev­er, the cham­ber agrees with cur­rent Port-of-Spain May­or that there is too much bu­reau­cra­cy and tape sur­round­ing this fun­da­men­tal is­sue. If T&T is ever go­ing to en­joy a div­i­dend for the $310 mil­lion that Tourism Min­ster Stephen Cadiz pro­pos­es to spend on mar­ket­ing the two is­lands as a des­ti­na­tion of choice, Gov­ern­ment must ad­dress the age-old is­sue of street dwelling. The CSO's 2011 cen­sus al­so shows a wider dis­per­sion of the prob­lem to To­ba­go, and we do not need to spend even more mil­lions on any study to tell us that va­grants, loi­ter­ers, street dwellers and home­less per­sons, who cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment of risk for vis­i­tors, are not con­sis­tent with des­ti­na­tions of choice.