20 MORE BEDS FOR THE ST ANN DROP IN CENTRE
After a tour of the St Ann Drop-in Centre last Friday (January 30), Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Hon. Desmond McKenzie announced that an additional twenty beds will be added to the facility to accommodate the increased number of homeless persons in St Ann. The facility, which currently houses twenty-one overnight clients and several more drop-ins daily, is seeing an increase in the number of unhoused individuals.
“We are at the capacity of the facility both in persons who attend on a daily basis and those who sleep overnight. We are going to be expanding capacity to take more of the persons who are in need of shelter. It is important that we do that because a lot of persons, especially because of Melissa, some of the conditions that they were living in prior to Melissa, have made it even more difficult for them… so we are going to look to increase the numbers by an additional 20 bed spaces” he said.
Minister McKenzie explained that while the drop-in center is a temporary space, the homeless facilities across the island have added value to the lives of its clients, noting that several users of the service have gone on to advance their educational pursuits through the support of the administrators.
“The prime Minister has given me instructions to ensure that all the progammes, all our social programmes, reach the targeted population that need that service… quite a number of persons who are in these facilities, not just here in Ocho Rios but right across in our drop-in centres are young people. Person with ambition, there is a lawyer at the Desmond McKenzie Transitional Facility in Kingston…” he said.
The Minister added, “The purpose of these facilities is to cater for those persons… I am happy to meet the young man that I met the last time I was here. He wanted to get his lifeguard registration, he never had the money, we provided the funds for him he has gotten it, and he showed it to me, and he has now even gone further to make themselves useful despite the circumstances.”
Another user of the facility, who serenaded the Minister with a rendition of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Three Little Birds,” on a broken guitar agreed to move into the facility as opposed to staying on the outside of the facility. The Minister has committed to providing him with a new guitar, to support his musical talents while he remains in the Shelter.
Suzette Prince, the administrator at the Drop-in Centre expressed her gratitude to Minister McKenzie,
“ I just want to day thank you so much for always taking the time out to care for the less fortunate…the last time you were here, you assisted the service user in getting his life guard certificate, not only that, he went on further, two of our users, went on and they did the ‘Teen Jamaica’ programme, they were successful and they are now certified”.
Fortunately, majority of the drop-in centres and night shelters in the western part of Jamaica only sustained minor damage during the passage of hurricane Melissa, all of which have been repaired and are in full operation according to Minister McKenzie.