MONTEGO BAY, St James — Montego Bay Deputy Mayor Councillor Richard Vernon (Jamaica Labour Party, Montego Bay South Division) has outlined a plan to deal with the increasing number of homeless people on the streets of St James.

“This programme will include a GIS [Geographical Information System] mapping system,” Vernon told last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation.

“The purpose of this is to better monitor the locations where homeless persons would frequent so we can have a better understanding of the trend,” said Vernon.

Areas now being occupied by the homeless, he said, include underneath bridges, inside abandoned vehicles, and on the streets of Montego Bay.

Vernon noted that someone is categorised as being homeless if he or she has lived on the streets for more than 30 days.

“My latest information shows that at present, there are 235 persons homeless and some still might not be captured,” he said.

According to the deputy mayor, there are some measures in place to provide support.

“At present there is only one shelter located in Albion, St James, which is able to house 90 persons. In addition to that, the ones on the streets get two meals a day every day. They have a place to shower and they get clean clothes,” he said.

Vernon told the meeting that a lot more needs to be done to result in the homeless contributing in a meaningful way to society.

“We want to partner with HEART to provide skills training, we want to build capacity so that the homeless can reintegrate into society, to involve entities to provide employment,” he said.

“We seek to engage the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill, the National Council on Drug Abuse, and other agencies that deal with people who are homeless or who have fallen outside of the social structure,” he added.

“We want to also see the creation of transitional facilities that will help us to help the homeless persons to move from a state of homelessness to be reintegrated into society as employable and productive citizens. So we are working effortlessly and, of course, our chairman is here and he’s very passionate about the poor and persons who are facing these types of atrocities. We’ll be seeing more homeless persons getting the type of assistance they need and transitioning out of their current reality into uplifted citizens,” said Vernon.