More home­less Venezue­lans are trick­ling to Ir­win Park fa­cil­i­ty in Siparia hop­ing to get free meals, cloth­ing and shel­ter.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty on Mon­day more than 20 Venezue­lans were loung­ing on cots, and on chairs.

There were enough food and drinks to feed a hun­dred more peo­ple.

Itil­da Whar­wood from the Siparia Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion and vol­un­tary trans­la­tor Jen­nifer Joan Cowie have been spend­ing their time at the fa­cil­i­ty en­sur­ing that peo­ple do not take ad­van­tage of the Venezue­lans.

Whar­wood said peo­ple with "less than ho­n­ourable in­ten­tions" have been com­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty hop­ing to get the women to work.

"We have told the Venezue­lans that it is not safe to go with peo­ple. We are do­ing all that we can to make sure that they are ok," she added.

On Sat­ur­day, the fa­cil­i­ty was sup­posed to be used for a game but in­stead of putting the for­eign­ers out, they were in­stead tak­en out on a tour for the day.

"We took them to Clifton Hill beach, by the Pitch­lake and at Debe where they got dou­bles. It was a re­al­ly fun day," Whar­wood said.

Us­ing What­sApp and Google trans­late, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers which once ex­ist­ed be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela have been bro­ken and ca­ma­raderie has de­vel­oped.

Trans­la­tor Cowie said she lived in Venezuela for many years and was ea­ger to as­sist.

She praised oth­er vol­un­teers Pasky Ram­sumair, Pamela Sandy and Yvette Pierre who have been tak­ing turns to su­per­vise the Venezue­lans.

One of the lo­cals at the fa­cil­i­ty said sev­er­al restau­rant own­ers have been com­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty hop­ing to get the young Venezue­lan women to work in their bars.

"These peo­ple us­ing women to get cus­tomers. They run­ning their es­tab­lish­ments like a broth­el now and be­fore it wasn't so. Now peo­ple are look­ing to tak­ing ad­van­tage of them," he added.

Chair­man of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh com­mend­ed the peo­ple of Siparia for as­sist­ing the Venezue­lans.

He said they will be ac­com­mo­dat­ed un­til reg­is­tra­tion be­gins on Fri­day.

More than 60,000 Venezue­lans are be­lieved to have fled to Trinidad as the Venezue­lan so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis in­ten­si­fies.

A to­tal of 5 mil­lion peo­ple have left their coun­try be­cause of food and med­i­cine short­ages.