By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE ST. JAMES office of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security is promising that, within two weeks, the 16 people who were made homeless by the $1.5 million fire on Hart Street, Montego Bay, last week Friday are to be given cash grants.
Donovan Malcolm, branch manager of the St. James office of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, told The Gleaner that all victims of the blaze had been registered.
"The file on the families affected by the fire is to be sent to the head office of my ministry in Kingston, before the end of the week," Mr. Malcolm said. "I expect that within two weeks, the cash grants will be forthcoming to the affected persons."
Pointing out that the ministry generally gives a maximum of $10,000 to each family, he explained that the Permanent Secretary could approve a grant of more than $10,000 to a family, if a particular case merits such action.
COMFORT ITEMS
The ministry says it has provided "comfort items" for persons made homeless by the fire. "We have provided them with clothes and with emergency packages of food and toiletries," said Mr. Malcolm.
In the case of Arnold Sloley, 73, the oldest of the fire victims, Malcolm explained that because it was not convenient for him to stay for a long period of time at his daughter's, they would be approaching Food for the Poor to assist him under its indigent housing programme."
Earlier this week, the fire victims complained that the authorities had been too slow in assisting them. Claudia Hewitt, a mother of four, said she lost all her belongings and her family's possessions in the fire.
"My children can't go to school because their clothes burn up in the fire," said Ms. Hewitt, who has lived at Hart Street for five years. "I think government must act more speedily to help us."
The Jamaica Fire Brigade has still not determined the cause of the fire, which gutted two tenement houses and damaged two other houses.
