A home in need - JamaicaObserver.com

Saturday, November 07, 2009 1:45 PM

News

A home in need

Ebenezer inmates living in virtual squalor

BY RHOMA TOMLINSON Sunday Observer writer editorial@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, July 05, 2009

INMATES at the Ebenezer Home for the Mentally Ill in Mandeville live in virtual squalor due to a lack of finances, which has left inmates in desperate need of basic items such as food and clothes, and the facility itself is in dire need of repairs.

The hospice currently houses 11 male inmates, who administrators say survive only because of the goodwill of a few volunteers, handouts from churches and one or two businesses in the parish. Even staff members take money out of their own pockets to help.

Chairman of the Board of the Ebenezer Home, Reverend Clarister Johnson (left) greets a worker at the facility.

When the Sunday Observer visited the facility recently, the bathroom area used to clean up the men when they come in off the streets was in obvious need of repair. There were several broken window panes and furniture and appliances that required replacement.

Reverend Clarister Johnson, who chairs the board of management for the Home, says it needs at least $400,000 per month to operate effectively. They currently get in only about $50,000 a month. Much of that sum, she says, comes from a small chicken project operated by the inmates, as a part of their rehabilitation. The men kill and prepare the chicken, which are then sold to a nearby school. Money from the project helps to buy food and meet some other basic needs of the inmates.

It is not nearly enough. In addition to more food, inmates need clothes.

"We're just barely existing, it's a real struggle. We're really desperately in need of funds. There are a lot of things we'd like to do, but we just can't do. We have to beg food for the inmates most times or pay for it out of our own pockets. Businesses like Top Loaf in Mandeville have been very good to us; they give us bread every week. Food for the Poor used to help us out with a little food, but we haven't been getting much from them recently. I think they're having some problems as well," Johnson said.

She added that her board members have approached the Manchester Parish Council for help for the facility.

"The parish council gets some funds in its coffers to take care of the mentally ill. I'm hoping they will help us by giving us a little money. They told us they get $75,000 a month for street people and they've been helping us, because they already pay our utility bills for us. But we'd like to get some of those funds for the Home," Johnson said.

She added the previous government had promised to come on board "but the dollars went when the government changed and it was put on the backburner".

Johnson told the Sunday Observer that last year at a dinner held to raise funds for the Home, Finance Minister Audley Shaw, who was the guest speaker, promised to give the home $600,000. However, to date she has received nothing.

"I've made numerous calls to his office and I've heard nothing. I've basically given up on that. We need about $400,000-$500,000 to run the place, but if we could just get even $200,000, it would be a start," the board chairman said.

She said any funds the Home receives this year would be pumped into extending the chicken project, beginning a small farm and stepping up the rehabilitation programme.

"We have a little land at the back of the property. We'd like to clean that up and start a little farm. This would also keep the inmates busy. But the land is marl and we have no equipment. We'd love to get even a fork and some machetes to start working the land. We could plant some corn and some potatoes, some peas," she said.

Johnson said the home has managed to stay afloat only because of monetary donations from organisations, such as the Central Manchester Returning Residents Association, the police civic committee, the Moravian Church in Mandeville and a few kind citizens who give from time to time.

Paulette Wheeler, who works as treasurer for the Home, said sometimes she has to beg her neighbours for food for the Home.

"A neighbour will give a tin of this or that from time to time but that's not enough," she said.

Johnson said most of the workers at the home were volunteers.

"We're not paid. We have one man here who we pay to take care of the grounds and help out with the men. He helps them rear the chicken and so forth. We feel so bad, we'd like to pay him more but we have no money,"
she said.

The Regional Mental Health Board has assigned a mental health person to the Home.

"This person comes in and talks with the inmates, but the person is only temporary. If we could get some funds to employ a full-time mental health person, to be a member of staff - someone who could talk to the inmates, attend to them - that would help a great deal," she said.

While the reverend and her team engage the men in physical work to help with their rehabilitation, there is no sustained mental rehabilitation programme.

"Many of the men have been here for years. Some people feel that we shouldn't keep them here. They feel that we should get these men rehabilitated and send them out. But where could we send them? Many of them have no homes, no family that we know of. And those who have families, the families don't want them," Johnson said.

One inmate, Robert, who administrators say had "a very troubled childhood", told the Sunday Observer that the Ebenezer Home had given him a new lease on life.
"I've really been through a lot. The Home has helped me to know a different leaf, a new life. People don't see us as a part of society, but the Home has accepted me as a part of society," he said.

Though the administrators fear the Home may have to close as more severe effects of the global recession set in, Johnson is hoping the parish council and others in Mandeville will come on board fully to help save the facility.

"How we're going to manage is a real struggle. There's a fear that we might close. But we're working with the fact that the Regional Mental Health Board has joined us. We're hopeful," she said.

The Ebenezer Home shares a compound with the government-run Manchester infirmary. It was started shortly after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, when then Moravian minister Neville Neil formed the Community of Concerned Citizens to help the needy in the parish.

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