Many mis­takes have been made over the years by var­i­ous lo­cal au­thor­i­ties in their ef­forts to deal with the coun­try’s home­less pop­u­la­tion. Promi­nent among them have been var­i­ous

Port-of-Spain may­ors who have em­barked on un­suc­cess­ful cam­paigns to rid the cap­i­tal of street dwellers.

These past fail­ures should serve as ex­am­ples of what not to do for So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox, as she leads the lat­est ef­forts to pro­vide them with treat­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Ear­li­er this week, at the sod-turn­ing for a $50 mil­lion As­sess­ment Cen­tre and Tem­po­rary Hous­ing Fa­cil­i­ty for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons at South Quay, Port-of-Spain, Min­is­ter Cox spoke about ef­forts to en­sure there is “the right leg­is­la­tion” to take care of the so­cial­ly dis­placed, adding laws are be­ing de­vel­oped for the in­vol­un­tary re­moval of home­less peo­ple from the streets. This has been a ma­jor stick­ing point in past ef­forts to deal with T&T’s bur­geon­ing pop­u­la­tion of in­di­gent, men­tal­ly ill and drug-ad­dict­ed peo­ple who oc­cu­py pave­ments and open spaces across the coun­try.

But laws alone won’t pro­vide so­lu­tions to this per­sis­tent prob­lem.

What was miss­ing from every failed past ef­fort to ad­dress the street-dwelling is­sue was a prop­er un­der­stand­ing of all the fac­tors that prompt some cit­i­zens to live on the streets.

There are many states of home­less­ness in this coun­try and many caus­es.

It is my­opic to re­gard home­less­ness as a hous­ing prob­lem—some street dwellers choose to leave their homes for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons. How­ev­er, it is a fact that many peo­ple end up on the streets be­cause they can’t af­ford rent in the con­tin­ued strug­gle to ac­cess af­ford­able hous­ing.

Home­less­ness is much more than a con­se­quence of chron­ic pover­ty, psy­chi­atric in­sta­bil­i­ty, or sub­stance abuse.

It is a very com­plex prob­lem that has been fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the in­flux of Venezue­lan mi­grants in­to this coun­try in re­cent years.

Too of­ten, un­for­tu­nate­ly, the sit­u­a­tion is viewed through nar­row and out­dat­ed pa­ra­me­ters.

There is no one-size-fits-all so­lu­tion for T&T’s prob­lem of street dwellers. The ten­den­cy to re­gard the home­less mere­ly as cit­i­zens who have slipped through the so­cial safe­ty net does not give the full pic­ture. It over­looks in­tri­cate el­e­ments of a hu­man cri­sis that needs much more than laws, poli­cies and treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties.

Ur­gent­ly need­ed are in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es to home­less­ness, a range of short—and long-term so­lu­tions, in­clud­ing ex­pand­ed treat­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices, and ed­u­ca­tion­al and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, all pro­vid­ed in cir­cum­stances that pro­tect ba­sic hu­man rights.

Over the years, State agen­cies have had valu­able sup­port from NGOs and faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, such as the St Vin­cent De Paul So­ci­ety and the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty. These col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts go a long way in de­liv­er­ing eq­ui­table care and pro­mot­ing jus­tice for the home­less.

How­ev­er, it is nec­es­sary to go sev­er­al steps fur­ther and gath­er da­ta from lo­ca­tions with dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly large home­less pop­u­la­tions to en­sure re­sources and in­ter­ven­tions are prop­er­ly tar­get­ed where they are need­ed the most.

Al­so, as chal­leng­ing as it can be to do so, laws, poli­cies and prac­tices for help­ing the home­less must be framed with com­pas­sion. An­ti-op­pres­sive ap­proach­es will work best in ef­fec­tive­ly meet­ing the health and so­cial needs of this most dis­ad­van­taged seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion.

Most of all, past mis­takes must be avoid­ed for any chance of solv­ing this chron­ic prob­lem.