Richard Lord

Gov­ern­ment is to spend $191 mil­lion to con­struct ten fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing three safe hous­es and an "in­sti­tute of heal­ing," for vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing chil­dren.For­mer Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray an­nounced that at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

She made the an­nounce­ment for the ab­sent min­is­ter, Clifton De Coteau. She said the projects were part of Gov­ern­ment's agen­da for solv­ing the so­cial prob­lems af­fect­ing fam­i­lies, es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren.Two as­sess­ment cen­tres are to be built at Princes Town and Ch­agua­nas to as­sess at-risk, ne­glect­ed or abused chil­dren and de­ter­mine the lev­el of care re­quired. She said two more cen­tres al­so were be­ing planned for con­struc­tion but not yet ap­proved.

Coudray said Cab­i­net's ap­proval al­so was grant­ed yes­ter­day for three safe hous­es for vic­tims of do­mes­tic and oth­er vi­o­lence. One safe house for men will be built at Ste Madeleine and two for women at Princes Town and Guayagua­yare.They will pro­vide "se­cure ac­com­mo­da­tion, psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port and ac­cess to so­cial ser­vices for the vic­tims, which will fa­cil­i­tate their heal­ing and prepa­ra­tion for a re­sump­tion of in­de­pen­dent liv­ing."

Tran­si­tion homes to house 12 boys or girls were be­ing planned at lo­ca­tions to be iden­ti­fied, she said.In Sep­tem­ber, she said, Cab­i­net ap­proved a pro­pos­al for the min­istry to en­ter in­to a con­tract with the Sal­va­tion Army, Port-of-Spain, to pro­vide tran­si­tion ser­vices for young women leav­ing com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences.The in­sti­tute of heal­ing, which was sug­gest­ed by for­mer min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, is ear­marked for con­struc­tion in Chatham, Point Fortin.

She said two re­mand cen­tres were to be con­struct­ed at Or­ange Grove, Trinci­ty, one will be for boys and the oth­er for girls in cus­tody of the State for breach­es of law. She said a mul­ti-pur­pose youth fa­cil­i­ty was to be con­struct­ed in Ste Madeleine.She said more than $156 mil­lion would be for con­struc­tion, while there would be a pre­lim­i­nary bud­get of more than $7 mil­lion for fur­ni­ture and oth­er fix­tures and $27 mil­lion for con­sul­tan­cy fees and project man­age­ment pro­vid­ed by Nipdec.