As the home­less pop­u­la­tion in­creas­es in the south­ern city, Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to look at pos­si­ble build­ings which can be re­fur­bished to ac­com­mo­date dis­placed peo­ple.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing a food and ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion at Court Sham­rock, one of two home­less shel­ters in the city.

Singh said the cham­ber has con­tin­ued to sup­port Court Sham­rock over the years.

“This is our way of giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty in which we live and thrive. Busi­ness­peo­ple are as­so­ci­at­ed with mak­ing prof­its and al­ways look­ing at the bot­tom line but we are here to prove that busi­ness­peo­ple are giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

Singh said the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has af­fect­ed cit­i­zens neg­a­tive­ly and this was show­ing in the in­crease of home­less peo­ple.

“We have been through two harsh years. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we are see­ing a rise of home­less peo­ple on the streets, on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, Har­ris Street and around the courts. This is in­dica­tive of the harsh times in which we live,” Singh said.

He called on the Gov­ern­ment to take heed of the bur­geon­ing num­bers of home­less.

Asked whether the cham­ber sup­port­ed a pro­pos­al to block off Har­ris Prom­e­nade to keep out the home­less, Singh said, “We heard about the sug­ges­tion and we need to en­gage in fur­ther dis­cus­sions.”

Asked whether it was pru­dent to spend $1 mil­lion to re­fur­bish City Hall when dozens of home­less peo­ple need­ed help right across the street, Singh said lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives need­ed a com­fort­able place to func­tion, not­ing that City Hall was the pride of San Fer­nan­do.

“We have to be proud of our city. City Hall has been there for over 100 years. How­ev­er, any re­sources al­lo­cat­ed have to be on a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ba­sis and based on so­ci­etal needs,” he added.

While pri­vate cit­i­zens have set up a shel­ter at King’s Wharf, Singh said oth­er build­ings in the city can al­so be used to ac­com­mo­date the home­less peo­ple.

“There are build­ings around the hos­pi­tal area that could be ren­o­vat­ed at a rea­son­able cost while the Gov­ern­ment comes up with a greater plan,” he said.

Mean­while, Kim Mar­cano, the su­per­vi­sor at Court Sham­rock, thanked the Cham­ber for their gen­eros­i­ty. He said the cen­tre need­ed ad­di­tion­al re­sources.

“We need a psy­chol­o­gist and a psy­chi­a­trist. Our staff is mea­gre, two su­per­vi­sors, a man­ag­er and an ac­coun­tant. We have res­i­dents here with dif­fer­ent needs and we have 35 in-house res­i­dents. Re­cent­ly, we opened a night shel­ter that ac­com­mo­dates 20 more peo­ple,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said this is less than a quar­ter of the so­cial­ly dis­placed cur­rent­ly in the city. He not­ed that since the Pi­paria shel­ter and the shel­ter in Port-of-Spain closed down, more dis­placed peo­ple are flock­ing to San Fer­nan­do.