Ray of hope for MoBay's homeless - Marked improvement post-'Street People Scandal'

WESTERN BUREAU:Mental health advocate Joy Crooks says that while requisite infrastructure support is still lacking, there has been vast improvement in the attention given to Montego Bay's homeless community since the 'Street People Scandal' in 1999.

"A lot of positives came from the commission of enquiry into that horrible incident. First and foremost, the state of mental-health care was exposed, showing that it was short of what was required to properly treat our clients," she told Western Focus on Monday.

"Today, it is far better than it was then, even though we still have some way to go."

Crooks is the nurse administrator and a director at the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill (CUMI) - a rehabilitation day centre that began operations in 1990 and caters to more than 120 clients.

She recalled that in the early years of her work with CUMI, only one mental-health officer was assigned to each parish.

"A mental-health officer and a mental health social worker had over 2,000 cases and had to work in the hospitals, clinics, and the community," Crooks stated.

"This was realised to be an impossible task for any one person, and today, we have three or four mental-health officers to a parish."

The mental-health community service was also restructured, with a number of projects and programmes being introduced throughout the island.

The Street People Scandal saw some 39 persons abducted from the streets of Montego Bay in the pre-dawn hours of July 15, 1999, and transported to St Elizabeth and subsequently dumped near a mud-lake.

The incident sparked international outcry and was followed by a commission of enquiry, but no one was found criminally responsible.

The enquiry, however, revealed that a St James Parish Council truck and rope purchased by the municipal authority, as well as police officers, were used to carry out the act.

The Government accepted liability and was ordered to pay the victims a $20,000 monthly stipend as part of a compensation package.

Progress being made

The Cornwall Regional Hospital and non-governmental organisations involved in mental-health care also established a structured way to complement each other's functions. This manifested itself with the well-needed donation of a $3.5 million Toyota Hiace bus to the hospital last week. CUMI contributed $1 million, while the remainder came from the National Health Fund.

Efforts to contact Robert Clare, chief executive officer of Open Heart Charitable Mission (OHCM) in Montego Bay, which works with Montego Bay's homeless population, were futile. However, Clare's organisation operates under a memorandum of understanding signed with the St James Parish Council about two years ago.

The council pays the utility bills, while OHCM funds the day-to-day operations and salaries of its employees. There is a care centre at Lawrence Lane in downtown Montego Bay where three hot meals are provided to individuals, and a shower made possible.

Open Heart also runs the Refuge of Hope Night Shelter in Albion, where up to 50 men and 30 women can be accommodated.

Despite efforts at improvement, Crooks believes there is at least one critical area left to be addressed.

"We still have problems because we don't have a proper drug-rehabilitation facility. Most of those still on the streets of Montego Bay are there because of drug-related activities, so we still need to have a structured service that caters to their needs. We still have a way to go, but it is still a great development from where we were."