Missionaries of the Poor (MOP) says it has more than 300 requests to provide shelter to homeless Jamaicans, but the Roman Catholic religious institute founded in 1981 by Father Richard Ho Lung has no more space in the seven homes it operates in the island.

“We have, in writing, 350 names, but there’s more than that. People who are homeless and destitute, they have nowhere to go for help. They’re asking for somewhere to stay,” Father Ho Lung told the Jamaica Observer.

“Some of them are kids… sent to us by the children’s hospital; police bring some of them in. We get regular telephone calls from the hospitals actually, because the people can’t stay at the hospitals permanently,” added Ho Lung.

He made the revelation at a recent Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange focusing on today’s Sagicor Sigma 5K Run/Walk, which seeks to raise $115 million for three beneficiaries — Father Ho Lung and Friends Foundation, Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre, and the Intensive Care Unit at Kingston Public Hospital.

Ho Lung said that MOP has been receiving “steadily 10 telephone calls a day” with requests to house people, that has resulted in many of the brothers, who work in service to the poor and destitute, encouraging him to establish another home.

Ho Lung is fully aware of the dire need, but any such venture will require funding which, he said, will come with God’s will.

However, the money the charity will receive from today’s Sigma fund-raising event will be used to repair the roof at its apostolate named Bethlehem on High Holborn Street, downtown Kingston, which houses mentally and physically disabled children.

“It is a two-storey building, but the roof is in such a deplorable state that [when it rains] the water runs down the walls and runs down into the nurseries where the children are housed,” Paula Shaw from Father Ho Lung and Friends Foundation told the Observer Monday Exchange.

“But even before it gets down into the nursery, the second level… is where the pharmacy is that stores medication for the children, and, in fact, for all the residents in our seven apostolates, and also some food storage is held on that floor. So there’s a direct effect on the children,” Shaw said.

During the Monday Exchange with Observer editors and reporters, the scale of the island’s challenge with homelessness was further highlighted by Ho Lung, who revealed that recently, a young woman in need of shelter was taken to Holy Innocence, the MOP home for women, and was taken in by the sisters who provide service there.

“They took in one last night, a lady who came, she’s a retarded girl, she’s five months’ pregnant, she can’t speak, she had been raped, and she just wanted some place to stay,” he said to audible gasps.

“We take them in for life…We keep them and hope that people will come and pick them up, you know, probably relatives or distant relatives,” Ho Lung said.

Last October, Desmond McKenzie, the minister of local government and community development, was reported as saying that there are more than 3,000 homeless people in Jamaica.

He made an appeal to their families to not abandon them, but instead help provide safe accommodation for them.

“Many of our homeless friends have families, they have homes, but some of the families have abandoned them, turned their backs on them, turned them out,” he said in an address at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation Wellness Day of Care to commemorate World Homeless Day, October 10.

In 2021 the State news agency, Jamaica Information Service (JIS), reported that the Government has several initiatives to assist homeless Jamaicans. Among them are 11 drop-in centres islandwide where people can access services; two night shelters in Kingston – Marie Atkins Night Shelter and Church Street Shelter which operate between 6:00 pm and 7:00 am offering meals and nightly accommodations to people in need; six transitional facilities located in Kingston, Portland, St James, Westmoreland, and Manchester, which are 24-hour operations that house people for up to two years and help individuals develop skills and coping mechanisms to allow for re-integration into society. According to JIS, people are admitted after they have met the requirements of the Poor Relief Department, an agency of the local government ministry.

Additionally, the Poor Relief Department supports people who are homeless, living in very poor conditions, or facing eviction with rental assistance.

Rental assistance is dependent on the assessment results of individuals’ living conditions.

JIS also reported that the Government operates a special feeding programme, which is a joint effort between the municipal corporations, corporate Jamaica, churches, and other volunteers, which distributes approximately 30,000 meals and care packages through drop-in centres daily.