Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Port-of-Spain’s pro­posed $55 mil­lion As­sess­ment Cen­tre and Tem­po­rary Hous­ing Shel­ter for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Peo­ple, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for com­ple­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2025, has stalled.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Re­port and 2026 Bud­get doc­u­ments, as of Sep­tem­ber 2024, $16.3 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed to the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) for the project. An­oth­er $7.3 mil­lion (es­ti­mates) was ear­marked for fis­cal 2025, but the UNC gov­ern­ment’s 2026 bud­get in­clud­ed no al­lo­ca­tion.

The bud­get doc­u­ments de­scribed the project as 49 per cent com­plete, not­ing that ex­ter­nal works, main build­ing works, roof in­stal­la­tion, and me­chan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal, and plumb­ing work had been com­plet­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Ude­cott, the five-storey build­ing is in­tend­ed to serve ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons (160 men and 40 women), in­clud­ing the home­less and peo­ple in need of tem­po­rary hous­ing due to emer­gen­cies such as fires.

The fa­cil­i­ty was de­signed to of­fer as­sess­ment and mon­i­tor­ing ser­vices, in­clud­ing a com­put­er lab, li­brary, in­take lounge, mul­ti­pur­pose hall, kitchen, laun­dries, bath­rooms, sep­a­rate male and fe­male dor­mi­to­ries, and se­cu­ri­ty booths.

How­ev­er, the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al re­port not­ed that “a con­tract reg­is­ter was not pro­vid­ed for au­dit ex­am­i­na­tion.”

A $55.8 mil­lion con­tract for de­sign-build ser­vices was award­ed in May 2023 to Amal­ga­mat­ed En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (AESL), a Clax­ton Bay-based com­pa­ny owned by en­tre­pre­neurs Isha, Moshim, and Mu­das­sar Khan, ac­cord­ing to com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments. As of Ju­ly 2024, AESL had 23 reg­is­tered em­ploy­ees and af­fil­i­ate com­pa­nies in Bar­ba­dos and Plan­ta­tion, Flori­da, where all three di­rec­tors have list­ed ad­dress­es.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed AESL sev­er­al times last week but was told that checks had to be made be­fore an up­date could be pro­vid­ed. No up­date was giv­en, leav­ing it un­clear whether AESL has re­ceived pay­ments from Ude­cott for any work com­plet­ed.

Re­peat­ed at­tempts to con­tact Ude­cott chair­man Shankar Bidaisee via phone, text, and What­sApp for com­ment went unan­swered.

Shel­ter as a so­lu­tion

Dur­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2023 “turn­ing of the sod” cer­e­mo­ny at­tend­ed by for­mer PNM min­is­ters Don­na Cox, Kei­th Scot­land, and Fitzger­ald Hinds, Cox high­light­ed the ur­gent need to ad­dress Port-of-Spain’s long-stand­ing is­sue of street dwellers. At the time, she cit­ed a sur­vey show­ing at least 254 peo­ple liv­ing on the streets of the cap­i­tal and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

Part of the man­date of the new Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices—the suc­ces­sor to the PNM gov­ern­ment’s Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment—is to re­duce and as­sist so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons.

In fis­cal 2025, $26.1 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for so­cial pro­grammes de­signed to im­prove the stan­dard of liv­ing for vul­ner­a­ble and mar­gin­alised per­sons. Of $5 mil­lion ear­marked for so­cial­ly dis­placed cen­tres, on­ly $2.7 mil­lion had been utilised.

A Pe­nal Tran­si­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ty, com­pris­ing six apart­ments for dis­placed fam­i­lies, was launched in April. For fis­cal 2026, the Min­istry was al­lo­cat­ed $6 bil­lion, in­clud­ing $1.5 mil­lion for up­grades to the Cou­va Tran­si­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ty for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Women.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit for com­ment. Her as­sis­tant took the in­for­ma­tion, promis­ing a re­sponse via What­sApp or phone call, but no re­ply was re­ceived.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Port-of-Spain Cen­tre’s con­struc­tion site last week, lo­cat­ed across the riv­er next to the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion Ter­mi­nal on South Quay. No con­struc­tion work was un­der­way, with on­ly one em­ploy­ee on site, mon­i­tor­ing ac­cess.

The perime­ter was blocked by large gal­vanised sheets, while the four five-sto­ry build­ings tow­ered be­hind them. Foun­da­tion work ap­peared most­ly com­plete, and walls made of Best­crete con­crete blocks filled the spaces be­tween large ex­te­ri­or steel beams. Win­dows had not been in­stalled, and con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als such as sand, grav­el, and con­crete blocks re­mained on-site.

The hu­man toll

A walk through the cap­i­tal two weeks ago re­vealed the ur­gent need for such a fa­cil­i­ty. While Port-of-Spain is known for its bustling busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty, it is al­so home to dozens of home­less peo­ple squat­ting on ex­cre­ment-stained pave­ments and out­side aban­doned build­ings.

On the cor­ner of Low­er St Vin­cent Street and In­de­pen­dence Square North, a man in his 50s named Mo­han holds a card­board sign seek­ing as­sis­tance. While not home­less, he has fall­en on hard times.

“I was laid off last year from a ma­jor con­struc­tion com­pa­ny af­ter the elec­tion,” Mo­han said. “I al­so did work for a la­dy in Tu­na­puna. One day, she bought me a phone, and that same day, a man at­tacked me for it. He stabbed me, punc­tured my lungs, and took the phone.”

He lift­ed his brown-and-white po­lo shirt to show the stab wounds on his tor­so and wrist, ex­plain­ing that he spent six weeks at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex re­ceiv­ing 287 stitch­es.

“I have two boys, both 15. My wife had a stroke, so all we live on is a dis­abil­i­ty grant. It’s re­al­ly hard to sur­vive out here. I’ve paid NIS; I’m try­ing to get help through So­cial Wel­fare,” he said, de­scrib­ing the pro­posed So­cial­ly Dis­placed Cen­tre as “just an­oth­er gim­mick.”

Else­where on Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, a home­less man with a Guyanese ac­cent who pre­ferred

From page 6

to re­main un­named has lived on the streets for over ten years. He avoids shel­ters for his own safe­ty but said that a prop­er fa­cil­i­ty with se­cu­ri­ty and up­dat­ed ameni­ties, like the pro­posed Cen­tre, would be wel­come.

“It’s very dif­fi­cult and very hard. I am just out here to pray. I don’t want to in­ter­act with any­one in a shel­ter or home­less com­mune for my own safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. It will be putting my life at risk,” he said.

“Re­mem­ber the Nazarene had a place down there. In my ear­ly days, when I just end­ed up on the street, I was stay­ing there one night. Every­body had their own beds, but an in­ci­dent hap­pened down­stairs, one of those guys got stabbed.

“I didn’t know any­thing about it, but the po­lice came and in­ter­viewed every­one. What hap­pened was that every­one in the com­pound is con­sid­ered guilty, be­cause Pe­ter has to pay for Paul. In those terms, since then, I don’t like in­ter­ac­tion, be­cause you can’t trust any­one, and peo­ple will do those things just for so,” he said.

When he is asked whether a prop­er fa­cil­i­ty with se­cu­ri­ty and up-to-date fa­cil­i­ties like the pro­posed Cen­tre for Dis­placed Per­sons would change his mind, he said, “Yeah, if there is a prop­er fa­cil­i­ty - with se­cu­ri­ty and prop­er fa­cil­i­ties - then I wouldn’t mind. That would be a wel­come ad­di­tion, but they have noth­ing like that to date.”

At the River­side Plaza Car Park, a dozen home­less peo­ple sit out­side the old cen­tre for street dwellers. One man with a speech im­ped­i­ment was un­able to ful­ly ar­tic­u­late his sto­ry, but the strug­gle of life on the streets was ev­i­dent.

Five min­utes lat­er, two women pull up in a ve­hi­cle, pop­ping the trunk open.

One of them, Nicole, who be­gins dis­trib­ut­ing meals, ex­plained: “To­day is my birth­day. I usu­al­ly have a par­ty, but to­day I want­ed to give back to the peo­ple in need. It’s for the love of God and peo­ple, be­cause with­out God, you can’t love any­body.”

Un­der the barred-off area of the car park, es­tab­lished dur­ing COVID-19, lives An­tho­ny Joseph, known af­fec­tion­ate­ly as Broth­er John, a 70-year-old blind man who has been home­less for near­ly three years af­ter los­ing his home in a fire on De­cem­ber 29, 2022.

“I got two let­ters from a mem­ber of par­lia­ment in 2023 and an­oth­er from HDC, but noth­ing. The last thing HDC told me was that they found a place in Trou Macaque and asked me if I want­ed it. I told them yes, but they went silent since.

“My two daugh­ters are 14 years old and my son is 17 years old, but I’m a sin­gle par­ent be­cause my chil­dren’s moth­er suf­fers from deep de­pres­sion. I got blind in 2013. I was di­ag­nosed in 2006 with an ad­vanced state of glau­co­ma. My chil­dren’s moth­er left, but I stayed with my kids for two years and five months un­til I went ful­ly blind. When I re­alised I was go­ing ful­ly blind, I went to Fam­i­ly Court for them to as­sist me. Some­one, through the courts, de­cid­ed to take them over to their place, be­cause the place was get­ting over­crowd­ed,” he said.

As a St Lu­cian na­tion­al, who has lived in Trinidad and To­ba­go for 41 years with three Tri­ni chil­dren, he wor­ries that his dif­fi­cul­ty in try­ing go­ing through the process to ac­quire cit­i­zen­ship may af­fect any chance of ac­quir­ing a new home.

“I feel aban­doned, yes. I am a res­i­dent, and I am try­ing to be­come a cit­i­zen, but the state I am in now, it is very hard. I have all the forms print­ed and every­thing.

“If I get a new place, my chil­dren would be able to come back to me, so that’s what I’ve been try­ing to do, be­cause they are grow­ing up. I want to get out of here be­cause I have been here for three years.

“I would even take a room, be­cause I am not de­pend­ing on HDC any­more. If I de­pend on HDC, I may nev­er get out of here. There are a lot of dis­abled peo­ple, pen­sion­ers on the streets. There should be a place for these kinds of peo­ple,” he said.