AT least one mental health professional is predicting an increase in the number of homeless people this year, adding to the estimated 650 Jamaican adults and 800 or so children and adolescents without a permanent roof over their heads.

“It’s about 650 adults on the streets islandwide; 60 per cent are mentally ill and drug abusers (while) 10 per cent are deportees,” said psychiatrist Dr Wendel Abel, who has done research through the University of the West Indies on the homeless as recently as 2006.

“The majority of them are males, as it is for any homeless population. They are concentrated in our major urban centres — half of them in Kingston and St Andrew (and the rest in places like) Montego Bay, May Pen and coastal resort towns like Ocho Rios,” he added.

Abel noted that the homeless figures could increase in the coming months, given the prevailing economic conditions, which could leave many out of work.

“I am sure (the numbers will go up). In an economic recession and economic crisis, you have more people falling through the social safety nets and through the cracks,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Psychiatrist Dr Maureen Irons-Morgan, director of mental health services in the Ministry of Health, did not agree.

“I think we have already started to address the problems and we are constantly working at it. (Also) I know I heard the mayor (of Kingston, Desmond McKenzie) speaking about additional efforts that will be made. So I think we are kind of ahead of the problem with respect to homeless people,” she said.

“I also think that with collaborative effort a lot can be done. I believe that Jamaicans are generally very resilient and in the face of adversities, I expect to see us rising and realising new opportunities and creative ways of dealing with this situation,” Irons-Morgan added.

But whether or not the numbers increase, the consensus is that there is need to strengthen the services on offer to the homeless community and particularly the mentally ill and drug users among them.

“Fifty per cent are mentally ill. We obviously have to improve our community mental health services. We have to ensure we have more community mental health professionals — more psychiatrists, more nurses, more social workers. And we have to try to widen the social safety net,” said Abel. “And, of course, we have to deal with the male deportees — almost 3,000 a year (and) one to five per cent (of whom) really have no family support system.”

Nurse administrator at the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill Joy Crooks said homeless drugs users — the majority of them young people — are a particular concern for areas such as St James.

“The majority of the street people (Montego Bay) have drug-related problems and don’t have any proper rehabilitation facility (where they can get help). There is a building that the Rotary Club refurbished, that is in the hands of the Cornwall Regional Hospital right now. But there are no funds to open it and run it because it has to be staffed and you have to be able to cater for your patients,” she said.

“These persons need a restricted environment to be treated in, once you start rehabilitating them. So we need that facility open in order for us to start addressing the problem of street people in Montego Bay and St James,” added Crooks, an experienced psychiatric nurse who has managed CUMI since its 1993 inception.

Like Abel, she said there was need, too, to improve the social service offerings to the homeless.

“Most of these persons (certainly in Montego Bay) are young persons and outside of the rehabilitation programme, they need social workers and support groups that are going to help them to keep clean after they have been rehabilitated. So we need a social safety net, which we don’t have at all,” Crooks noted.

Irons-Morgan said Government is working to improve services, while noting that the input of a variety of stakeholders is critical. For starters, she said efforts are afoot to get an accurate count for the estimated 1,500 homeless islandwide. She added that there is also to be greater co-ordination among entities that provide services to street people.

“I am coming at it from several angles. There will be a co-ordination of the effort of the governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). I know that the NGOs are coming together in a coalition, and that the governmental organisations are going to come together with them,” said Irons-Morgan, also director of the local charity, Friends of the Homeless. “From the Government side, we are looking at policy planning and monitoring of all that is happening so that we achieve the objective — to make services available for people who are homeless so that they do not have to remain homeless.”

In the interim, she said, there are a number of facilities available to the homeless in Kingston and across the island.

“The community mental health service is always responding to their needs. If people see the homeless and the mentally ill, in particular, they can call the community mental health service and they will respond. In Kingston the number is 930-1152. The regional health authorities have various other numbers,” she said. “The Open Arms Drop-in Centre in Kingston is 938-1757. They have a vehicle which has been supplied by the KSAC (Kingston and St Andrew Corporation) and this vehicle will assist in getting people into places where they can get help.”

There is, however, one challenge that requires urgent attention, Irons-Morgan said: housing.

“What is needed, really, is housing that persons can access. We find that people come into the temporary shelter, they go through the various rehabilitation programmes and they are now ready to move on to housing they can live in for minimal support (but it is lacking),” she said.

“That is an area in which we need different collaborative efforts. It is a situation where we would look at different funding agencies and different charity organisations and whatever governmental support would be available in that area,” Irons-Morgan added.