The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

LYDIA King is 60-years-old, unemployed and disabled. She does not know how she and her mentally ill son will get food to eat during the five-day lockdown that begins tomorrow.

When she spoke to The Tribune yesterday, she could not even tell when she would have drinking water in her home again.

There are thousands like her nationwide, according to Bahamas Feeding Network Director Philip Smith, residents who search for meals each day and, without help, will face severe difficulty if charitable organisations are shut down to prevent spread of the novel coronavirus.

“It’s going to be really difficult, particularly for people who don’t have the money readily available so they are depending on donations,” Mr Smith said yesterday. “We have a network of churches and soup kitchens that we distribute 70 percent of our food to and the other 30 percent we go out and deliver to communities ourselves and persons also come to our centre in Fox Hill for food. During the regular lockdown, they exempted us, but with this total lockdown we can’t do anything. I would think that with a three to five-day lockdown, a number of people would have serious, serious difficulty.”

Keisha Ellis, executive director of Hands for Hunger, said she is also concerned for people who need food assistance. “The reality of the situation is that even though we have more time to prepare for this lockdown, there are many people who simply do not have enough disposable income to purchase enough food to stock up for five days,” she said. “We, and other organisations like ours, are working very hard to make sure that we reach as many families as possible and provide them with food packages to last for the five-day lockdown.”

Mr Smith said Ms King is typical of the neediest people in the country who may not receive assistance from the Ministry of Social Services. She lacks funds to buy more than one or two food items at a time and is a frequent grocery shopper, spending small amounts of money as soon as friends, religious or charitable organisations provide support to her from day to day.

She said she has two sons, a 20-year-old security guard who was laid off because of COVID-19 and a 33-year-old with mental illness. In 2008, she was involved in a car accident that left her with a broken hip. She could not afford the “$90,000 surgery.”

She said ordinarily Mr Smith would help her get food for short periods of time or she would get small amounts of money from kindhearted people she knows.

But with the looming, five-day shutdown, she does not know where her meals will come from.

“I think the government should have a place you could go and put your name down and get assistance because we need it,” she said. “Some people don’t have the money to go and get the food and I don’t have the money to get everything in one day. I get help from people who give me a little $10, a little $20, that’s how I have to do it. It’s really hard for me because I’m disabled. I don’t think I’ll eat anything.”

Progressive Liberal Party leader Philip “Brave” Davis raised concerns in the House of Assembly yesterday about how some people will get food during the lockdown.

“I got at least two separate texts while sitting here from persons who say they don’t have any food and how are they going to feed themselves over that time,” he said. “(I’m) wondering whether social services (will) set up some hotline where people could call to get assistance for food with a delivery service particularly to the elderly because that is a challenge.”

Social Services Minister Frankie Campbell responded that officials are looking to establish feeding stations. However, it is not clear how food assistance services will be provided during the lockdown.

The Ministry of Social Services’ food assistance programme caters to fewer than 10,000 Bahamians. Mr Campbell said programme registrants have Bank of the Bahamas prepaid cards on which funds are uploaded monthly. “I am aware that there are a number of persons whose cards have expired in the interim,” he said. “Those concerns have been expressed and are being addressed.”

He said his department is also providing special food assistance to people who find themselves on reduced workweeks because of the tourism shutdown.

“This for us is uncharted territory,” he said, adding that within a week 3,000 people in the country applied to an email last week seeking help.

“I want those persons to know that they will begin getting responses starting today and I am advised, and I know that my team is listening and will not make a liar out of me, that as early as this Wednesday, coupons will be ready and person will be contacted and advised, (a) how they can collect those coupons or (b) how the coupons may be delivered to them.”

Nonetheless, Ms Ellis said there are many people that “slip through the cracks” and cannot get help from the Ministry of Social Services for a variety of reasons. “The official numbers from the 2013 Household Expenditure Survey indicate that 43,000 people in The Bahamas live below the poverty line, but we know that there are many more that struggle to maintain a basic quality of life,” she said. “According to our studies, about 1 in 4 people in The Bahamas regularly worry about not having enough food. That’s where organisations like ours come in.”

In a Facebook post yesterday, acting Financial Secretary Marlon Johnson said the prime minister’s national committee on COVID-19 response is considering exempting non-governmental organisations that provide food services.

Mr Davis said people in need of food are not the only ones who require special assistance during the lockdown, citing the experience of an elderly friend of his who recently died.

“For three days because of the lockdown no one went to see him,” he said. “They called multiple times (and could not get through) but someone took the chance and went to the house and they found him on the ground, barely responding. He was taken to the hospital where he eventually died. The elderly persons who live alone, we need to think about and see how we can deal with their circumstances. I lost a good friend whose life may have been saved but for the case that he was discovered late.”