BAEH just about ready for Christmas season

WITH the holiday season upon us, homeless persons in Barbados have a beacon of light to look forward to. Just about a week away from operating at their new maximum capacity, the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness, formerly known as the Barbados Vagrants and Homeless Society, will be ready to swing the doors at their new facility open.

Since relaunching and renaming their organisation on their 10th anniversary back in October, the Alliance has been busy retrofitting their new home at Gooding House in Spry Street, the City and can now house up to 90 persons each night. With men, women and children welcome to use the facility each day once it opens, President of the Alliance Kemar Saffrey explained during a media conference held yesterday at their new home that they had come a long way and would be ready to open once one final piece of infrastructure was put in place.

“The shelter will also provide daily showers, breakfast, mentorship programmes, counselling programmes and training programmes of every sort to be able to rehabilitate and re-integrate one back into society. And also with the partnership of various organisations that we have partnered with such as the Welfare, the Psychiatric Hospital, Verdun House and the prison and some of our consulates on the outside of Barbados shores to make sure that anyone that is affected by homelessness can be able to be assisted in this shelter,” he said, going on to say that a timeline of one week had been placed on the completion.

Although the Alliance continues to run its programmes in lieu of the shelter, Operations and Programmes Manager Kimberly Hinds-Harewood said that the demand for the shelter had in fact spiked with an increase across the board. She did state that more non-nationals and women – especially those with children – had been coming forward and she reported that she had encountered at least ten new cases within the past week alone.

With Christmas around the corner, Saffrey said that his organisation had launched a new appeal as there was a constant need for continuous support from Barbadians. “While many persons may want to always donate food and clothing, the organisation will need to also be assisted with financial donations. And with that we put out a way that we believe that every Barbadian can take part and it is called the ‘Adopt a Bed’ campaign, where we are asking Barbadians to give a contribution of $20 to go towards a bed and that would go toward a person being able to receive a bed for the night, counselling, breakfast in the morning, cleaning of the linens, taking care of the dorms. And we are asking for as low as $20 to be donated to the organisation,” he said.

Going on to say that the drive was aiming at a projected $800 000 to get the new facility through the year, Saffrey said that was just a ballpark figure and that he would only know the true cost of running the new shelter for a year. He also spoke to two new partnerships that would now make donations easier. Outside of making donations directly to the Alliance or through their accounts at CIBC FirstCaribbean, Republic Bank or Scotiabank, Saffrey revealed that things were soon in place to make donations via the Cave Shepherd Credit Card and at SurePay locations islandwide.

The Alliance’s new home will be able to house their new capacity in the three-storey facility, which is in use on a lease-to-own contract. With a price tag of $1 million, Saffrey is hoping that at the end of three years they could call it home for good and is also asking the public to help make this a reality. (MP)