Latest update April 6th, 2025 11:06 AM
Latest News
- High Court bars GRA from seizing Team Mohamed’s luxury vehicles
- Oil spill will hit Guyana’s shores before capping stack arrives to plug leak
- UN says 100 children killed or injured in Gaza every day since war resumed
- Guyana received US$605M oil money in first quarter of 2025
- ‘Tariff war’ spells grave danger for the Region – CARICOM Chair Mottley
Govt. taking hands-on approach to rid city streets of vagrants – Minister Persaud
-as decades-long problem continues to irk City Mayor
By Tamia Lashley
Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Human Services and Social Security has been taking steps within the ambit of the law to clear the city of vagrants. This is despite accusations made by Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine that too little is being done to address this protracted dilemma.
Mayor Narine recently expressed his dissatisfaction at the manner in which the Government has been handling the current issue.
In fact, Narine claimed that the City Council has not been receiving any help from the Government to initiate a proper plan to remove homeless individuals from the streets of Georgetown.
Describing the vagrants as “social rejects”, the Mayor said that the capital city has been faced with them for many decades. Expressing the urgency for this to become a thing of the past, he said, “…I’ve met Honourable Minister Dr. Vindhya Persaud in 2020 and 2021, letters were dispatched to the Honourable Minister with a comprehensive plan from the City Council. To date, we never received a response.”
However, during an interview solicited by this publication, Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr. Persaud debunked the Mayor’s claims making it clear that her Ministry has and continues to take action to resolve the prevailing problem.
While she divulged no plans to collaborate with the Council to get the task done, the Minister shared her view that it is time that the Mayor too puts his hands to the wheel. “I wish the Mayor would do his part and get involved in this…The Ministry is already doing its best to ensure that people are not on the streets,” she said.
Minister Persaud explained that her Ministry and by extension the Government are very aware of the prevalent problem of homelessness in Georgetown, and assured that efforts will continue to be engaged to valiantly battle this scourge. “The Ministry is very cognisant of this problem…we want to ensure that people who are homeless have a safe space,” she asserted.
Vagrants on a street in Georgetown
Moreover, she said that her Ministry has already moved to rehabilitate and expand the Night Shelter at East La Penitence, Georgetown, in order to accommodate persons living on the streets.
Even as she highlighted the measures that have been employed thus far, the Minister thought it necessary to inject that “the homeless aren’t to be viewed as lesser individuals or nuisances.” She went on to point out that many of them find themselves without homes under circumstances that were out of their control.
She said too that though the services offered to vagrants are free, the Ministry cannot force anyone to take advantage of these. “It’s not prison, we can’t force people to stay there. So what we have been doing is that the team has been going out and we are encouraging people to go.”
According to Dr. Persaud, the Ministry will be implementing many more plans in the future which will lend support to improving the state of Georgetown.
As she spoke on the matter, she said that “From this week, we will be intensifying these efforts; you will see me launching a task force, you will see me perhaps, and members of the team, going out trying to get people off of the streets.”
But even as she detailed an elaborate plan aimed at ridding the streets of vagrants, the Minister admitted that her Ministry cannot solve the problem in isolation. She noted that there is need for other government agencies, the City Council and citizens too to get on board.
To this end, she said that her Ministry has thus far been in contact with the Ministry of Health and its Mental Health Unit to come up with solutions on how to not just house, but also provide the necessary treatment to those mentally ill and mentally unstable individuals who are among the vagrants.
“We can’t do it alone, this will require the law, this will require the police, this will require the Ministry of Health and because this requires knowing the condition (state of mind) of the person, this also concerns the legislation,” the Minister said.
According to the Minister too, citizens can play a very important role by contacting any homeless institute when they see destitute persons, particularly the elderly, in their community.
She stated categorically that under her watch, only the best efforts will be made to help persons in a situation of homelessness, no matter their age, ethnic background or gender.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
This must not be our hour of humiliation
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- There are moments in the history of nations when fate lays before them a choice not of... more
The U.S. “Joining” the Commonwealth: an unreasonable expectation
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- Recent media stories have suggested that King Charles III could “invite” the United... more
Weekend Cartoon
