Vagrants are running from Port-of-Spain and heading to central Trinidad. So said Chaguanas mayor Orlando Nagessar who was speaking at a stakeholder engagement meeting on the National Strategy for Street Dwelling in T&T on Thursday. He said he had noticed a marked increase in vagrants on the streets of Chaguanas since the announcement that street-dwellers would be rounded up come December 5.
He said that would mark the end of the nuisance caused by homeless who rummage through trash, harass pedestrians and sleep under buildings. Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh, Minister of the People and Social Development, said Chaguanas would be included in the locations when the pilot phase to relocate street-dwellers began next week.
Also speaking at the event, Ramadharsingh urged nationals not to give cash to street dwellers. He said persons who wished to give the homeless a handout could instead give them food or clothing or make donations to registered charitable organisations that assist them. He said in many instances they were substance abusers who sought cash to fund their bad habits.
He said come December 5, a team from his ministry would start tackling T&T's estimated 1,480 street-dwellers with the objective of finding them suitable housing. Ramadharsingh said the team consisted of persons from stakeholder agencies. He said there was also a back-up team to deal with any bureaucratic challenges during the process.
However, Ramdharsingh said it was easier to say than do since picking them off the streets was a complicated process since some may have an array of psychological and psychiatric problems. He said some street-dwellers were once upstanding people in society, such as doctors and lawyers, who had steered onto a wrong path.
He also called on the business community to partner with the ministry to deal with street-dwellers since that community was in the forefront in complaining about them.
