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Across two of Trinidad and Tobago’s major urban centers, the growing concentration of unhoused people occupying public sidewalks, plazas and green spaces has pushed the long-running crisis of social displacement back into national focus. Local business leaders and municipal officials are now calling for a collaborative, evidence-based response that moves beyond temporary enforcement and surface-level fixes.

In the capital city of Port of Spain, large groups of socially displaced people are now concentrated across multiple high-traffic districts, most noticeably along Upper Henry Street, Prince Street, Upper Charlotte Street and Chacon Street. During a recent on-the-ground assessment by the *Express*, unhoused individuals were found camping on sidewalks and public areas outside major bank branches along Independence Square and South Quay. The crisis is not isolated to the capital: officials with the San Fernando City Corporation confirm that the visibility of unhoused people occupying public spaces has also risen sharply in their jurisdiction, most prominently at the central downtown landmark Harris Promenade.

While no updated national survey has been completed to confirm an overall increase in the country’s homeless population, the greater public visibility of street homelessness in both cities has reignited debate over the effectiveness of current government policy. The most recent official data, collected in 2023 and published by the Ministry of the People and Family Services in 2025, counted 624 homeless people nationwide, with 235 of those individuals residing in Port of Spain, St James, Woodbrook and Diego Martin. In the same 2025 announcement, the government confirmed it was building a five-story assessment and temporary housing facility at South Quay, with completion slated for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Gregory Aboud, president of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA), is pushing the government to restart a long-stalled initiative to build a Homeless Assistance Centre modeled after Miami’s successful, person-centered approach to homelessness. The plan was first championed for years by former DOMA president Anthony Salloum, who advocated for adopting core elements of Miami’s strategy to Trinidad and Tobago.

Unlike punitive detention models, the proposed center would be a voluntary hub that provides unhoused people with access to basic support services to help them rebuild stability. Under the Miami framework, participants receive access to a shower, haircut, warm meal and temporary accommodation in exchange for following basic behavioral guidelines. The model is designed to help participants rebuild self-respect and gradually reintegrate into normal society, with the freedom to leave the program at any time. Though the proposal was reviewed by Cabinet and plans for the center were finalized, construction never moved forward.

Aboud emphasized that the majority of people living on the streets do not fit the common harmful stereotype of being addicted to drugs or mentally unstable. Instead, he explained, most are unhoused because they have been abandoned by their families and lack any personal support network to turn to for help. “They have no uncle, no aunt, no sister, no brother, no cousin, no one to call their own, no one to lend them a helping hand,” Aboud said. “The great majority of them are simply homeless and helpless.”

He added that enforcement alone cannot resolve the crisis, calling for targeted assessments to separate unhoused people by their core needs: people struggling with addiction require specialized treatment, while those without social or family support need entirely different forms of assistance. Aboud also noted that DOMA has already seen program participants leave street homelessness behind to build productive, working lives in trades like carpentry. He called for a unified response from social services, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and government to develop a long-term, humane solution that gives unhoused people multiple chances to reintegrate into society meaningfully.

San Fernando Mayor Robert Parris echoed the call for addressing root causes rather than just moving unhoused people out of public view. He noted that many people who access temporary shelter and assistance end up returning to street life, proving that displacement cannot be fixed by simply clearing public spaces. “That demonstrates why simply removing someone from a public space does not solve the underlying problem. There has to be continued case management, rehabilitation, treatment where necessary, housing and follow-up,” Parris said.

In November 2025, Parris estimated roughly 200 unhoused people were residing at Harris Promenade. The city is now conducting a formal census to avoid relying on rough estimates, and has received growing complaints from local businesses and residents about issues including public sleeping, human waste, litter, food waste accumulation and occasional aggressive panhandling. Parris stressed that these concerns must be balanced with compassion: “We have to deal with these concerns while also remembering that we are dealing with human beings who need assistance. This must be approached with dignity and compassion.”

Parris identified a range of structural drivers of the current crisis: high unemployment, widespread family breakdown, addiction, unaddressed mental health challenges, loss of affordable housing, and a lack of sustained support after people leave temporary accommodation. He noted that a continuous care pipeline is only useful if it successfully supports people to maintain stability after they exit temporary housing. The San Fernando City Corporation has repeatedly called on the national Ministry of the People, Social Development and Family Services for more sustained, robust intervention that includes outreach, needs assessment, expanded shelter capacity, rehabilitation, counseling and long-term follow-up. Parris said no single municipality can be expected to solve the crisis of social displacement on its own, though he welcomed a recent $42,270 government grant to the San Fernando Centre for Displaced Persons, which will fund counseling, psychotherapy, case management and upgrades to sleeping facilities. “But we need sustained intervention, not isolated interventions,” he emphasized.

Kiran Singh, president of the Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce, added his voice to calls for a coordinated long-term response, outlining a framework that includes regular outreach, accessible mental health and addiction services, emergency shelter, targeted support for elderly and vulnerable unhoused people, and clear pathways to rehabilitation and employment. Singh argued that persistent street homelessness with unmet needs is a clear sign of systemic public policy failure. “It is not simply about people occupying public spaces; it is about whether our systems are adequately addressing the circumstances that leave people without shelter, care and support,” Singh said.

In a landmark ruling that underscores constitutional protections for pre-trial detainees, the High Court has ordered the state to pay nearly $1.9 million in damages to six former remand prisoners held in illegally harsh conditions at the Maximum Security Prison (MSP). Justice Devindra Rampersad, who delivered the judgment last Wednesday, ruled that the appalling conditions the men endured between July 2021 and their eventual transfers violated their fundamental constitutional rights.

The legal dispute traces back to July 24, 2021, when the Prison Commissioner ordered the six claimants transferred to the facility’s Building 13 alongside around 90 other inmates. Justice Rampersad concluded that this transfer decision was unlawful from its inception, noting that no evidence had been presented to show the Commissioner reviewed critical, relevant factors before acting. These unassessed factors included required evaluations from the High Risk Management Unit, documented conflicts between the transferred prisoners and existing Building 13 inmates, the targeting of Muslim prisoners by gangs already housed in the unit, and pre-existing medical vulnerabilities among several of the claimants.

During the court proceedings, state representatives defended the transfer by citing national security concerns, but the judge rejected this argument outright, describing it as “an unparticularised invocation of national security, unsupported by evidence of any kind.”

Worse than the unlawful transfer were the inhumane living conditions uncovered during the trial. Building 13 was severely overcrowded, with 95 inmates sharing a space that lacked enough beds, forcing dozens to sleep directly on dirty floors. Complaints from the prisoners cataloged a litany of unacceptable hazards and deprivations: leaking sewage pipes, a leaking slop pail holding human waste that seeped across cell floors, inadequate ventilation that created persistent extreme heat and stifling humidity, widespread infestations of vermin, and no consistent supply of running potable water. Additional grievances included toilet water only being made available twice per day, overhead lights left on 24 hours a day that disrupted sleep, and the use of cells that had already been officially condemned as unfit for occupation. The claimants also reported limited access to necessary medication and clinical care, failure to provide required prescribed diets, and repeated interference with the religious practices of the Muslim prisoners in the group.

Justice Rampersad emphasized that these conditions could not be written off as routine, minor shortcomings in prison infrastructure, noting that such failures were unacceptable even in 2021. “That the slop pail, the sewage on the floor and the overcrowding should be found in that building in 2021 is not a matter of mitigation. It is a matter of aggravation,” he stated. He also pushed back against the state’s attempt to frame the case as a routine dispute over substandard prison conditions, clarifying that the egregious nature of the abuses set this case apart.

Crucially, the judge highlighted that all six claimants were remand detainees: individuals who had not been convicted of any crime, and were only being held in custody to ensure they appeared for their upcoming trials. After reviewing all the evidence, he ruled that the conditions crossed the constitutional threshold, qualifying as cruel and unusual treatment in violation of section 5(2)(b) of the national Constitution.

In addition to compensatory damages, Justice Rampersad awarded vindicatory damages, arguing that the state’s disregard for the rights of unconvicted detainees demanded a stronger legal response than mere financial compensation for harm. “Taken together, that discloses an institutional posture in which the State does not regard itself as obliged to account to this court for the manner in which it holds men whom it has convicted of nothing. It is precisely that posture which an award of vindicatory damages exists to address,” he explained. The judge further noted that constitutional protections are most critical when citizens are most vulnerable and unable to advocate for themselves, explaining that an award limited only to compensatory damages would leave the constitutional guarantee effectively meaningless, subject to the convenience of the executive branch.

Under the final ruling, each claimant received $150,000 in vindicatory damages, plus $250 in compensatory damages for every day they were held in the unconstitutional conditions. Individual awards break down as follows: Ayokie Charles received $374,500, Kerry Valentino took home $304,500, Brent Johnson was awarded $248,000, the estate of the late Stefon Austin received $319,750, Joshua Janet was granted $304,500, and Darrel Diaz was awarded $336,750. The total sum of damages before interest adds up to $1,888,000. Additional separate damages were also awarded to Charles, Johnson, and Diaz for assaults they endured while incarcerated in MSP.

Compensatory portions of all awards will accrue annual interest of 2.5% starting from April 19, 2023, through the date of the final judgment. The claimants were represented by attorneys Vincent Patterson and Joshua Hamlet under instruction from Nicole de Verteuil-Milne, while the state defendants were represented by Monica Moore under instruction from Savi Ramhit. The court also ordered the state to cover the claimants’ legal costs, which will be formally assessed by the court if the two sides cannot reach an agreed sum.

On Saturday morning, a rare convergence of intense downpours, strong gusty winds, and an unusually high tide triggered catastrophic flash flooding across multiple coastal communities in Cedros, southwestern Trinidad, leaving dozens of residents displaced, destroying personal property, and reigniting long-simmering calls for urgent infrastructure upgrades.

Stacy Hajarie, a new resident who had only relocated from Chaguanas to her uncle’s Bonasse home two weeks prior while searching for permanent housing, described the terrifying speed with which floodwaters engulfed the property. Trapped as rushing water surged in from both the front and rear of the property, she was unable to retrieve a single personal belonging before the waters rose. Her entire wardrobe, bed, kitchen furniture, and work computer were all destroyed, along with a custom chest of drawers valued at TT$5,000; Hajarie says she cannot yet calculate the full cost of her losses, and now only owns the clothes she was wearing when she evacuated to her uncle’s home. The flood also nearly claimed her uncle’s pet dog Whiskey, who was tied in an outdoor kennel; the animal was only saved when her uncle returned home mid-flood to pull him from the rising water. A visibly distraught Hajarie told reporters she will never forget the chaos of the disaster.

Just a few properties away, Standard Five teacher and father of four Imam Kahleel Emamdeen was busy pressure-washing his waterlogged furniture just days after the flood. Emamdeen and his entire family were in nearby San Fernando when they received an urgent call that their neighbourhood was flooding. By the time they returned home, ankle-deep water had already seeped into their home, soaking couches and mattresses, forcing the family to bail out water by hand with mops, sponges and buckets for hours. Emamdeen explained that chronic drainage failure has plagued the Cedros area for years: the single existing drainage artery cannot handle heavy runoff during high tides, leaving nowhere for excess water to drain except into residential yards and homes. He warned that the situation will only grow worse if new housing developments are built in the area without expanding drainage infrastructure, and has called on Trinidad’s Ministry of Works and Infrastructure and Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government to intervene immediately. “We need an additional drainage outlet, or even a pump house near the bridge, to handle future heavy rain,” Emamdeen said. “If it rains again, we are certain flooding will return. We need action now.”

Other local residents echoed Emamdeen’s concerns. Camira Harrylal, whose entire ground floor flooded, said Saturday’s flood was the worst the area has seen in two years. “I was home at the time so I was able to move most of my appliances to higher ground, but we still had water damage, and clearing all the dirty floodwater out of the house has been overwhelming,” Harrylal said. She added that clogged drains, blocked by accumulated garbage, worsened the flood’s impact, with high tide pushing backed-up water further inland. Eighty-three-year-old cancer survivor Eileen Toolsie, whose yard and ground floor were also submerged, said she had learned from past floods. “This is not new – we dealt with this terrible flooding four to five years ago,” Toolsie said. “This time around I got all my belongings up on bricks, so I didn’t lose any appliances, but it was still awful. All the mud, sewage, and contaminated water just poured into my home. It’s unbearable.”

Local officials confirmed the scale of the disaster. Shankar Teelucksingh, Siparia’s deputy mayor and Cedros’ district councillor, said between 60 and 70 residents across Bonasse, Fullerton, and Granville were affected by flooding that peaked around 9 to 10 a.m. on Saturday. Four private cesspools were compromised by the high water, and widespread power outages shut down the area’s water treatment plant, cutting off running water for residents. Quick response teams from the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission and the Water and Sewerage Authority worked through the day to restore service by mid-afternoon.

Teelucksingh said that disaster response agencies including the national Disaster Management Unit, local lawmakers, multiple government ministries, and private corporate sponsors quickly mobilized to deliver relief. Falling tide levels allowed most excess floodwater to recede within two hours of the peak, and response teams pumped standing water out of residential properties, distributed cleaning supplies and emergency groceries to displaced residents, and launched public health investigations into the compromised cesspools. He added that engineering teams are now assessing long-term solutions to create controlled drainage for seawater and rain runoff, to reduce future flood risk for local residents.

Teelucksingh emphasized that full damage assessments and infrastructure planning are still ongoing, noting that the area faces heightened flood risk through the Christmas season and into January, when king tides and unstable tropical weather are common. He thanked multiple government agencies and the local member of parliament for their quick support. In an official statement released Saturday, the Ministry of Rural Development Local Government confirmed that its Disaster Management Unit was actively monitoring the situation across Cedros, and Minister Khadijah Ameen had issued a direct order to deliver immediate emergency assistance to all affected residents.