WHILE being caught outside in a storm might be a nightmare for many, the idea does not faze some members of Jamaica’s homeless community who say they’ve done it before and will do it again with Hurricane Melissa.

Last week one man shared that from as far back as 1996 he has lived on the streets of downtown Kingston, braving harsh winds, torrential rain, and massive flooding brought on by almost every storm and hurricane, including Hurricane Ivan.

It is a similar reality for a 62-year-old woman at Justice Square who, in the two years she’s been homeless, has sought refuge at a market on Princess Street whenever there is heavy rain or a severe weather event.

The threat of Hurricane Melissa, which is projected to gain Category 4 strength when it makes landfall in Jamaica this week, has done little to scare them.

Last Thursday, the man who said he has been living on the streets since 1966, told the Jamaica Observer he has seen more storms than he can recall. His life on the streets of downtown Kingston started after he was released from prison. He said he’d returned home to find that it had been captured by a gang who ordered him to leave. With nowhere else to go, he took to the streets.

Recounting his experience with one particular storm, the man said: “It was not nice. The water rose high, come up, and all in you sleep it will go up and rise in the night and cover you.”

“All around King Street, it rose, and you can’t cross it. I had to just stand up until it went down back. We could do nothing more than stand up,” he shared, adding that he would hide between the buildings or hold on to the railings outside the courthouses to steady himself against the harsh winds.

“If we dead, we dead. If we live, we live. Just so it go,” said the 77-year-old, who said he was often in the company of many other homeless people who also choose not to seek refuge inside shelters.

“All we did was, we just use the cardboard that we sleep on and try to cover ourselves from the rain. If it got too bad, we might try to see if we can move and get more shelter elsewhere,” he explained.

While he could not recall the name of the storm, he said there was a time when he was sleeping in a box outside the Supreme Court and was awakened by the feeling of water covering his body. Alarmed, he said he woke up and stood all night until the storm subsided.

“Sometimes you deh there and your eyes start burn you, but you have to stay awake or you get wash weh,” he told the
Sunday Observer.

When there are clear skies, he said he has to contend with other issues, such as people stoning him or outbreaks of violence that saw him taking cover to avoid bullets. However, he would still choose the streets of downtown Kingston over living in a shelter.

The homeless man shared that he regularly visits Salvation Army for food and clothes after storms and almost daily. However, he would refuse to leave the street when disaster patrol teams make the rounds to take the homeless to shelters when potentially disastrous weather events are approaching the island.

He said that his hesitancy to seek refuge in shelters is due to experiences over the last 20 years, when he was forcefully taken off the streets by local authorities.

“You don’t get a proper feeding… They give you one slice of bread and cut it. In the morning, all 10:30, you are just eating and you don’t know when you a go get the next one,” he claimed.

“It nuh so wonderful. Is out here me a go deh. If it is not yah so, it’s out at the next part up of King Street,” he said in reference to his plans for weathering Melissa.

“Probably they will force us and take us off [the street] and go dump some of us [at the shelters], because they do it already,” he said, adding that he will only move if forced.

Meanwhile, the 62-year-old homeless woman seen in Justice Square said while she does not intend to stay on the street, she will not be found in a shelter either. Instead, she will be at a market on Princess Street, where she sought refuge during Hurricane Beryl. The Category 5 hurricane skirted the southern coast of Jamaica in July last year, leaving behind a trail of disaster. However, the woman said she was safe through it all.

“I carried one [piece of] cardboard and lay down on one handcart in there. Everybody lay down on a handcart. Some people carried a sheet and spread it up like a bed, and we were alright in there,” she told the Sunday Observer.

She said the facility has a bathroom that individuals use to bathe and wash their clothes, free of cost, with no harassment.

“We just in there and the rain fall and little thunder roll, and lightning [flash]. Then, after the water washes away, it just goes back to normal. The rain doesn’t catch us. A lot of people in there; the people who come from the country in there because they have their load tied up to sell.

“It all has a gate [that can] lock and nobody nah come in there come trouble you, and it nah leak. It alright,” she added.

The 62-year-old said she started living on the streets when her only child and caregiver passed two years ago. To make ends meet, she said she often tries to flip the money she receives from generous passers-by, buying fruits from market vendors at a discounted rate and reselling them. However, she hadn’t had much luck in the days leading up to the passage of Melissa.

“With the storm coming, everybody is raising their price,” she said, adding that for days after learning about the storm, she has been begging for money to save to buy food from the vendors, who also plan to take refuge in the market and sell their produce.

She said she has never sought refuge in a shelter and never will, because of stories she has heard of theft and tasteless food.

“Right there so me a go back,” she insisted.

The Ministry of Local Government and the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) have been appealing to homeless individuals to seek refuge at shelters across Jamaica, two of which are homeless shelters located in downtown Kingston.

Acting inspector of poor at the KSAMC Donna-Gaye Brady, while speaking with the Observer last week, said the assertive outreach team was out as early as last Thursday with a bus to take the most vulnerable to safety, but many have refused.

She appealed to people experiencing homelessness, and relatives of people who are homeless, to reach out to the shelter at 65 Hanover Street via the contact number 876-922-6936-7.