Two homeless St Elizabeth brothers have been sleeping rough in Braes River, taking up residence in a dilapidated building.
The brothers, 53-year-old Alvin Hyde and 52-year-old Perry Hyde, told The Gleaner they were evicted from a three-bedroom house belonging to their mother after her death seven years ago.
They found refuge in the abandoned building on the Gilnock Estate in the area.
Unable to drag themselves out of the malaise and subhuman living conditions that permeate the building, which is without roof, windows, and doors, exposing them to crawling insects and vermin, the brothers seem to have resigned themselves to mere day-to-day survival.
“After we mother dead, another family member tek the zinc off the house and run we out, so we come over here to live because we did not have [anywhere] to go,” Alvin, the older and more vocal Hyde, told The Gleaner.
“It hard to get work to make money to buy food. People ‘round here used to give we little something to do, but it hard pon dem, too,” he added, while attending to chicken skin cooking in a small iron pot, which was balanced on three stones with a wood fire blazing underneath.
Without any marketable skills to land steady employment to improve their lives, the brothers said the little they earn from doing odd jobs in the neighbourhood is insufficient to buy food and to find proper living accommodation.
“Nothing much nah work. We try the Poor Relief [Department] sometimes, but only little help come from them. Food is all we get,” said Alvin.
“We want a house so when rain fall we nuh get wet. Right now, a di Red Cross give few sheet a zinc and we put it up top. Them have hole in a dem, so we patch it so that we nuh wet up too much,” the older brother revealed.
Moreover, Alvin added that he is not able to perform difficult tasks because of a condition with his left leg, which is heavily bandaged and needs medical attention.
The brothers say they are prepared to go into peanut farming on the property where they live if they could get assistance.
While our news team was with the brothers, a community group delivered two bags of food items to them.
In 2021, Jamaica’s homeless population was estimated to be upwards of 2,400.
The Board of Supervision, which is a statutory body operating under the portfolio of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, oversees initiatives to assist the vulnerable under the National Homeless Programme.
In 2021, males far outnumbered females among the homeless, with some 1,931 men identified, compared to 474 women, according to the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica.
The survey further noted that all 13 parish municipal corporations were provided with budgets from an allocation of $59.9 million to support homelessness interventions, which included drop-in centres and night shelters for the year.
The Indigent Housing Programme also saw 195 houses built or repaired, benefiting 316 families in 2021. Manchester, with 74 building interventions, had the majority, benefiting 74 families. Expenditure on the programme was approximately $26.2 million for that year.