Food to be provided to homeless and indigent people in the Corporate Area must meet certain standards and must be taken to 11 specific locations approved by the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), Kingston Mayor Delroy Williams said yesterday.

Williams said that while people organising ad hoc feeding programmes for homeless persons had good intentions, order was needed in the process.

The mayor denied that Buju Banton’s recent philanthropic efforts in feeding homeless people downtown Kingston had prompted the KSAMC’s decision to restrict the homeless feeding programme in the city to specific locations.

He said that the food prepared for homeless people had to be hygienic and properly packaged. Organisations and individuals wishing to help should make contact with the shelters and institutions “who know how to do it”, he said.

Noting that the KSAMC had stopped the feeding of old people on the city streets since September 28, 2014, he said that in recent times several people hadnevertheless been feeding people on the streets. In the process “some persons are getting five meals daily and some persons are getting nothing,” Williams said.

A newspaper notice signed by the KSAMC CEO on Wednesday, April 3, stated: “The public is hereby reminded that the feeding of the homeless on street locations in Kingston, which includes King Street, is not tolerated and must be done at designated enclosed areas and buildings as prescribed by the KSAMC’s Poor Relief Department. We further order that this activity cease with immediate effect.”

The list of KSAMC-approved designated areas include:

The Open Arms Drop-in Centre at 16 1/2 Windward Road; Marie Atkins Night Shelter, 65 Hanover Street; Webster Memorial Church, Half-Way-Tree Road; Missionaries Of the Poor, High Holborn Street, downtown Kingston; St Stephen’s Church, The Good Samaritan Inn, National Heroes’ Circle; St Luke’s Anglican Church, Cross Roads; Salvation Army, Peter’s Lane, downtown Kingston; Bethel Baptist Church, Suthermere Road, Half-Way-Tree; East Queen Street Baptist Church, which caters for senior citizens only; and Stella Maris Church, Shortwood Road.