Governor General Dame Sandra Mason speaking with and Kemar Saffrey, President of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEM) during their tour of the shelter yesterday.
The Government of Barbados and business owners in the private sector are being strongly urged to support more initiatives that aid in the rehabilitation of homeless and displaced persons of society.
This is the call from Governor General, Dame Sandra Mason, and Kemar Saffrey, President of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEM), formerly Barbados Vagrants and Homeless Society, as they toured the recently opened shelter at Spry Street in Bridgetown yesterday.
In revealing some of the several services being offered to clients of the BAEM – such as counselling, meals, job placements and shelter – Dame Sandra Mason inquired as to how the organisation kept up with costs. The frank question to Saffrey was met with smiles as he admitted it was a challenge as Government currently does not support the project in a monetary way.
“We have not seen any Government intervention since we have been functioning in over ten years. We have pressed [government] year after year, and we have sent proposals. We are in talks with Government at this time as we’ve had several meetings [now] with the Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Cynthia Forde, and we’ve had several meetings up to this year. The Ministry of Finance has called for us to produce the finance documents that they need; we have successfully done that and so we are just waiting for estimates to be relayed,” he revealed.
Saffrey acknowledged that while Barbadians have been donating much needed food and clothing supplies, the costs associated with running the building are high because of the services that have been made available.
“We find that a lot of persons give us more food and clothing, rather than funding. We have increased our staff complement here to about 12 and the fact that we have people now living here, that was never the plan. We could be paying out more than $25 000 a month just to operate here. Thank God the Maria Holder Memorial Trust is covering the rent which is at $10 000, but we are then forced to look for the other funding to pay staff and maintain the building,” he stated.
With costs being sky high for the upkeep of the project, Saffrey also revealed that solar panel installation has already been looked into, with the initial audit for such a project already being completed and awaiting the necessary funding.
Clients of the shelter are not required to pay any money towards their accommodation, however, during their six months at the location, they are placed on job attachments during their final month. With many of them receiving welfare during the time there, Saffrey has called on the Welfare Department and Government to make changes in how monies are paid out, so that the shelter can receive a small portion of the monthly payments, while clients use their services.
“I see it in the States when we travel for training, that 30% of welfare cheques is given to the establishments that help them [clients]. We would ask that 30% of that comes to us,” Saffrey hoped.
Another issue stifling the progress of clients is the refusal or inability of potential landlords to accept welfare payments.
“The landlord has to be willing to take welfare’s money, and that is a big problem, because of all the stipulations you have to go through. Persons also have to look for the first deposit and those have been hindrances and the reason why we have people here still up to this day. We have been in talks with the Ministry to have that policy reversed so that persons can get out of our care, into their own care, and we can move onto helping the next batch of people,” he said.