Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

As Port-of-Spain marks 111 years of civic sta­tus, May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne is us­ing the mo­ment not on­ly to ho­n­our the city’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic lega­cy but al­so to push for­ward a strong call for com­pas­sion and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion on home­less­ness in the cap­i­tal.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing City Day ob­ser­vances yes­ter­day, Al­leyne con­firmed that the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion had been work­ing with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to com­plete the long-de­layed as­sess­ment cen­tre at South Quay, which is ex­pect­ed to be a crit­i­cal fa­cil­i­ty to sup­port street dwellers in the heart of the cap­i­tal.

“We’ve been work­ing very close­ly with cen­tral gov­ern­ment on the as­sess­ment cen­tre that is cur­rent­ly be­ing built at South Quay,” Al­leyne told Guardian Me­dia.

“I toured the fa­cil­i­ty ear­li­er this year. I haven’t yet had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet with the new Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment but I in­tend to, be­cause treat­ing with the needs of the so­cial­ly dis­placed, the most vul­ner­a­ble in our city, is some­thing that’s very im­por­tant to the coun­cil.”

The cen­tre is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide tem­po­rary shel­ter, show­ers, re­strooms, men­tal health sup­port and re­fer­rals for hous­ing and em­ploy­ment, of­fer­ing a struc­tured al­ter­na­tive to street dwellers.

On Sep­tem­ber 6, 2023, the then-min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, along­side sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, of­fi­cial­ly turned the sod to mark the start of con­struc­tion on an as­sess­ment cen­tre and tem­po­rary hous­ing fa­cil­i­ty for so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons.

The planned state-of-the-art, mod­ern five-storey build­ing will be lo­cat­ed at South Quay, Port of Spain, pro­vid­ing home­less cit­i­zens with a place to call home.

The city day an­niver­sary kicked off on Sun­day with an in­ter­faith ser­vice at St Pe­ter’s Bap­tist Church in Gon­za­les, fol­lowed by yes­ter­day’s colour­ful mil­i­tary pa­rade ad­just­ed to avoid dis­rupt­ing par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

Al­leyne ex­plained, “We wouldn’t want to cel­e­brate democ­ra­cy at City Hall while im­ped­ing it at the na­tion­al lev­el.”

The cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ue with a month-long line-up of events: a civic re­cep­tion ho­n­our­ing con­trib­u­tors, sport­ing tour­na­ments, cul­tur­al show­cas­es, and a ca­reer fair aimed at youth em­pow­er­ment.

Al­leyne em­pha­sised youth in­volve­ment as a cor­ner­stone of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic re­silience.

May­or Al­leyne, al­so a mem­ber of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), al­so re­spond­ed to in­ter­nal calls from the par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader for sys­temic mod­erni­sa­tion, say­ing the time had come to em­brace change not on­ly with­in po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions but al­so across lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

“Of course, I sup­port the call for mod­erni­sa­tion,” he said. “There are bet­ter ways for us to do things with the tech­nol­o­gy that’s avail­able, not just in the par­ty, but in City Hall as well. We’re work­ing on mod­erni­sa­tion ef­forts here.”

His re­marks come in the wake of in­ter­nal PNM elec­tions, where he un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed for the post of chair­man.