Pockets of homelessness around Bridgetown continue

There continue to be pockets of homelessness in and around Bridgetown.

According to President of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness, Kemar Saffrey some of these sites include the Treasury Building, the former Louis Lynch Secondary School, and the former Bridgetown Heliport.

He says the homeless group that frequents the area of the Treasury had been an eyesore, but that group has since been reduced. Mr Saffrey says the majority of those who remain in the area are limers.

He was speaking during a Bridgetown Consultation on Homelessness, under the theme ‘Bigger Better Inter Agency on Homelessness’.

Key stakeholders gathered at the Radisson Aquatica to discuss interventions to deal with homelessness.

Mr. Saffrey says he along with officers from Government’s Resilience and Reintegration Unit have visited on a number of occasions and offered interventions.

Recently, the area occupied by the homeless has been barred off.

The group has now taken to inhabiting the benches on the opposite side of the road on the Wickham Lewis Boardwalk.

However, he says the Treasury Building is the property of the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc., and they are within their right to do what they think is best with the property.

Additionally, Mr. Saffrey says the homeless in and around the city have all been offered jobs to clean up the streets ahead of the ICC T-20 Men’s World Cup.

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