By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WITH the COVID-19 pandemic impacting daily operations, Deputy Director of Social Services Kim Sawyer said yesterday officials are not certain when shelters for Hurricane Dorian’s victims will be completely deactivated.

This includes the Bahamas Academy Auditorium on Wulff Road, which is currently housing less than 100 people, the deputy director told The Tribune yesterday.

As it relates to the Poinciana Inn on Bernard Road, which is now serving as a transitional home for affected families, Ms Sawyer said officials are still hoping to have the temporary shelter closed by next week.

She said: “Well, the Poinciana Inn was technically for 90 days and the 90 days will end the 15th of May and so, we were informed to remind persons of that agreement and that is what we have been doing.

“Now we have where we can assist them with finding other accommodations and we’ve been trying to do that but with the COVID-19, that threw us back.

“But we’re still trying to work with them to see what we can do to assist them to move on. It’s really not our call to say if the time (at the inn) will be extended or not. That is the call of the government for that decision.”

Asked what will happen to those victims who have not found living accommodations by next week, Ms Sawyer replied: “Well, we can’t put people out on the streets.”

The ministry and its partners originally housed more than 2,000 people in shelters across the country following the passage of Hurricane Dorian in early September.

However, to date, only two shelters remain open in New Providence. Combined, the shelters house less than 200 people.

“(There are) 74 at Poinciana Inn (and) 97 at Bahamas Academy,” Ms Sawyer told The Tribune yesterday.

Earlier this year, Social Services Minister Frankie Campbell said officials were hoping to have the shelters deactivated before the start of the 2020 hurricane season, which is set to begin June 1 until November 30.

He noted his ministry was relying on several factors to finalise the matter, including receiving assistance from the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, Management and Reconstruction.

“We are relying on collaborative efforts from the new Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and the preparations that are being made in Abaco and the fact that persons are getting assistance with having their houses repaired,” he told reporters outside Parliament in February. I know the media likes to hold us hard and fast to dates and that’s probably why we don’t give dates, but we are hoping that within the next three months, we are hoping that before the new hurricane season we would be in a position to say that all shelters including the use of the Poinciana has ceased.”

Noting the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a “monkey wrench” in the ministry’s plans, Ms Sawyer told The Tribune that officials have not yet finalised a date for when the Wulff Road shelter will close.

She said: “. . .That is still a temporary shelter. I understand from quite a number of the persons that are housed that they would like to return to Abaco, and I think that is what they were working towards.

“But, with the COVID situation, that’s not possible now because we have some situations where a spouse or partner would have returned to Abaco and was working and just trying to secure adequate housing for the family and like I said, this sort of threw a monkey wrench in our plans.”

Ms Sawyer added officials were also depending on the government’s family relief centre to accommodate storm victims.

She added: “My understanding was that in addition to the domes in Abaco, there was supposed to be a family relief centre and my understanding was that they were still working towards that.

“And so, some of our (shelter residents) who were probably disqualified to go into the domes would have been qualified to go into the family relief centre.”

The pandemic has not only affected the ministry’s housing plans for Dorian survivors, but it has also impacted the daily operations of the shelter itself.

Due to fears of shelter victims contracting the virus, Ms Sawyer said officials had to limit the movement of Dorian evacuees.

She said: “We had to limit the movement of the shelterees because we didn’t want them going out into the community and even when there is not a curfew, we have asked them to limit their movements because we don’t want them to go out into the community and then bring something into the shelter. “You could imagine if that happens. So, we had to limit their movements in and out of the shelter. We had a few that we even had to ask to leave for various reasons or some infraction but otherwise than that, like I said as an agency, we can’t put people out on the streets.”