Back in April, we told you that the Welcome Resource Centre had joined the National Sports Council and the Belize City Council to take care of the homeless population of Belize City during the National State of Emergency.
It's an initiative that some might criticize as having limited success, because you could still see the homeless on Belize's City's main streets throughout April.
But the City Council says that the challenge is that the homeless want to move around during the daytime. And this morning Mayor Wagner gave an overview of all the moving parts needed to provide COVID time shelter and sustenance for the City's less fortunate.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"Again, that was a great initiative spearheaded by our Councilor Hilton, she is responsible for health in that area and prior I believe it's around January she got together with some of the other agencies, the mental health, some of the resource centers that provide bedding and food for these homeless people and they did a significant and workable plan - Red Cross and all of them got together and with the national sports council and they identify the MCC grounds to have those people stay overnight. They provide them meals, they provide them bedding, clothing and that has work pretty well. You haven't seen that extent of people on the streets and I want to commend the work of Councilor Hilton, I want to commend the work of all the other agencies that came together, not worrying about color, not worrying about government agencies, not worrying about city council agency, but coming together to ensure that the homeless were taken care of. Having them exposed to the natural elements and having them out there and given the fact that they always moving around and in close contact with people, you will never know how significant that spread would have been."
Reporter
"We know that homelessness isn't purely economic, it also has to do with a lot of social factors, mental health factors - what are you guys doing different to keep these people in their allotted areas that you've designated?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"Yes, we want to not only do it short term, but we want to build on this initiative. We see the good in this initiative. It all comes back to collaborating with all the other agencies. We have met with some international partners as well, some of the religious organizations, churches overseas and they have indicated to us that they would be willing to help us along this line in providing to make this type of arrangement more permanent and so we want to see how that is pushed out as we get pass this Covid."
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