About 50 former prisoners and deportees staying at a Vision on Mission (VOM) halfway house may end up on the streets soon. VOM head, Wayne Chance, said the NGO had received an eviction letter from the landlord for the Champs Fleurs halfway house because they had been unable to pay the rent for seven months. Chance said VOM also owed $50,000 in rent for the San Juan office the organisation occupied. He said eight staffers left because they could not be paid.
He said the situation was a result of not getting their 2015 subvention from the Ministry of Finance, to date. He said VOM received a three-year subvention from the Government. The last ended in September. He said during the reading of the budget in September, VOM was left out, but Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development Vernella Alleyne-Toppin explained it was due to a mix-up.
He said VOM was promised that a note would be sent to Cabinet seeking funds for the group before the year’s end. “That did not happen,” Chance said. He said they “made out” with hampers given to them over the Christmas and he donated his ham and turkey to the halfway house. “But we have not been able to attend to the needs of those staying at the house. “We are at the end of our wits now.”
Chance said the organisation would now publicly “speak out” about the issue until they obtained redress. “We don’t know why this is happening. We have been working with the Government on several programmes. “I believe someone is deliberately putting off paying us our subvention.” He said the renewal of the subvention usually came after an evaluation of the organisation was done by the Ministry of the People and Social Development.
“We were evaluated and found to have improved and expanded our services. “But we encountered another setback when a new NGO Unit was formed in the ministry. “The unit was not satisfied with the old evaluation and wanted to do another one.” Chance said he was hoping Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar responded to their public pleas. VOM takes in released prisoners who have no homes to go to, and people deported from the US for criminal offences.
VOM offers them a place to stay, helps them find work and apartments, and offers them counselling and rehabilitation programmes to assist with their reintegration into society. Efforts to reach Alleyne-Toppin yesterday were not successful.