A Christmas miracle for Sanine Beale - Thought to be dead, homeless woman reunites with family

Sanine Beale, the 25-year-old homeless woman who is currently living at the St Catherine Municipal Corporation’s makeshift tent at the Linstead town centre, did not have to go without food, clothes and other necessaries for the holidays.

After The Sunday Gleaner published a story highlighting her plight, there has been an overwhelming response from not only her family members, but also from a Jamaican man living in Canada.

Beale arrived in Linstead after living on the streets in other parishes for more than four years, and along with four others were given accommodation first on the compound of the Linstead CDC offices and later at the St Catherine Municipal Corporation, where a makeshift tent was erected at the back of the building for them.

They indicated last week that they were struggling to find food and was unsure where they would get food to eat for the Christmas holidays.

This prompted Sanine Beale’s uncle, Qubert Beale, and a cousin whom she was living with in Lime Hall, St Ann, before she became homeless, to visit her on last Monday with food and other necessities.

Qubert Beale told The Gleaner that family members were overjoyed when they saw the report and knew that Sanine was alive, because they were told that she was shot and killed in Clarendon a week before.

“We are very elated, the fact that we were able to re-establish contact with her,” said Qubert. “It is not that we had not try to keep her in a place of resident, but she just could not adapt, and then we were told by a relative of ours that she was shot and killed in Clarendon.”

ALIVE AND LIVING IN LINSTEAD

Sanine’s uncle said it was last Sunday night, while the family was thinking about making funeral arrangements, and were organising for a family member to identify her body, that they learned that there was an article written about her, and published in The Sunday Gleaner, saying she was living in Linstead.

“A friend of mine who knew Sanine, WhatsApp the article to us Sunday night and we checked the date to see when it was published. Our minds were eased when we realised that she could not have been killed the week before if she had just given an interview to the paper,” he said.

The uncle, who lives in St Ann, said he did not hesitated. He immediately contacted a cousin who took care of her after the death of her parents and they set out last Monday morning to find her.

“Because we read that she was struggling to find food, we also shop for food items, clothing and other necessities for her,” he said.

Her cousin, who wished not to be named, told The Gleaner that Sanine Beale suffers from mental health issues, and she had not seen her since she left her house in Lime Hall four years ago.

“I decided to let her live with me after the death of her parents. She was twelve year old when I took her,” said Beale’s cousin.

“But when she turned 21, she told me that she wanted to find a husband, so she got up and left. I tried to use the police to get her to return after I found out she was on the streets in Ocho Rios, but because she was of legal age they could not force her to come back,” she continued.

The cousin said she did not hear anything from her for the next four years, until now. Both Beale’s uncle and cousin said they would like her to come home with them, but she refused, saying that she wants to stay in Linstead.

OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT

It was an outpouring of support for Sanine, when she was contacted by Anthony Reid, a Jamaican man living in Canada, who offered to provide assistance to her.

“After seeing her picture and reading her story I was moved with compassion, and the Holy Spirit nudged me to help her,” Reid told The Gleaner in an interview from Toronto.

“My mother also went through a similar situation when she was a young woman and there was nobody to help her, so after seeing her picture – and she looks just like my daughter – I said I have to try and contact her.”

Reid said he was able to get a telephone number for the town centre and reached out to her, initially sending money so she could buy some food.

Reid, who is now a Canadian citizen, said his first priority is to ensure that she gets back to school to acquire a skill. However she is handicapped by not having copies of her birth certificate and TRN , so arrangements have been made to get these documents.

In the meantime the St Catherine Municipal Corporation said the construction of its $30-million drop-in facility, which started in March 2020, should be completed by April this year.

Chief Executive Officer of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation, Andre Griffiths, said that the 2079-square-foot building ,including a basement ,now being constructed on parish council lands in Linstead, will be able to accommodate 40 people for feeding, and will have facility for 12 people to sleep there in the night.

Griffiths said the Ministry of Local Government has allocated $20 million of the sum needed to complete the structure, and is also providing monthly support for the Linstead homeless feeding programme, which is conducted six days per week, two times a day.

He dismissed claims by homeless persons in Linstead that they are struggling to get food, stating that it is a total misrepresentation of reality.