Mayor: No covid19 plan yet for homeless

Port of Spain Mayor Joel Martinez has said the PoS City Corporation is still working out the logistics for the socially displaced at a time when isolation is important.

He told Newsday that on Saturday, he met with a team from the Ministry of Social Development, representatives from the Ministry of Health, the PoS Corporation, and the City Police on Friday but they had not yet made any firm decisions.

“We are discussing the various options before us with the homeless during this period. We have to work towards protecting the vulnerable. We can’t have them on the street, so we are trying to work on solutions to assist them with accommodations over the next couple of weeks or more if necessary.”

He said the city police would use its “Nudge Along” policy to ensure the homeless did not loiter.

He added that the current homeless centre at the Riverside Plaza Car Park in Port of Spain could not hold all of the city’s homeless population, so the corporation was looking at additional measures. He said they would call on the business community and volunteers to help and were looking at properties to house more of the homeless.