Jamaican-style 'Les Mis': Help for LGBTs forced into the sewers?
Homeless LGBT men whom Jamaican police burned out of their shelter in a drainage ditch have relocated to the sewers, according to an informed activist.
The men’s plight — evicted from their homes by family, chased out of abandoned houses by police, forced out of a ditch where they huddled, now hiding in the sewers — has touched the hearts of a few charitable souls, who have provided a little food and financial assistance. See the bottom of this post for information about how you can help too.
The men are typically referred to as “unruly gays,” because their behavior is sometimes obnoxious or abusive.
But the police strategy of driving them out of wherever they live is short-sighted. At this point, a comprehensive, longer-term solution is under discussion, but remains far from reality.
Here’s the latest on the homeless MSM (men who have sex with men):
UPDATE ON HOMELESS MSM BURNED OUT BY JAMAICAN POLICE
A female Jamaican senior citizen and mother was so moved by the plight of these young men who were burned out by the police on Oct. 15 that she started providing them with non-perishable food items and cooking utensils from her own meager resources. Since a plea went out for assistance last week, several persons have agreed to help her defray some of the costs associated with this venture.
Thanks to this generosity we have been able to provide the youngsters with very basic sustenance and we also collected clothes which we will be sending to replace some of what they lost.
These youngsters (some of whom are just teenagers) have to be very mobile as they have been chased out of every home they occupied. Some of their previous residences were actually torn down after the boys were evicted by armed police. Now they live in sewers and even there they are not safe from police attack.
While we work on meeting their immediate needs, we are also collecting and documenting their stories so we can decide which course of action to pursue in order to provide them with long-term assistance.
It is clear these boys need a dedicated facility as they are harassed and abused when they use the government shelters. This is not surprising as our national revulsion against homosexuality makes homeless LGBT the lowest on the national totem pole of poverty. Any facility for these damaged youth will need to address their physical and emotional needs caused by crushing societal and family rejection.
Jamaicans should care about this issue because “the measure of a nation is how it treats its weakest members.”
Anyone who wants to help these homeless young men should leave a message in the comments section below this post or on the Erasing 76 Crimes page on Facebook.
Related articles
- Jamaica needs urgent action to save LGBT people’s lives (76crimes.com)
- Jamaica police join attacks on homeless LGBT men (76crimes.com)
- Police Raid Homeless Gay Men (Jamaican LGBT News via YouTube)
How can more persons be of assistance to these young men?
I’ve passed along your inquiry. Look for an email answering your question.
— Colin Stewart, editor of this blog
I would also like to help these men. It’s my understanding that they were living in JFLAG’s backyard until JFLAG lost its lease (effectively becoming homeless itself.) Is there a crowdsourcing webpage set up to fundraise for them? For JFLAG? Where are the big international gay rights organizations? Their silence on this issue is kind of deafening.
thank you very much Angela it is a shame that the now mainstream LGBT groups do not see the need to raise this longstanding issue to the level of importance as decriminalizing buggery, I hope too that this assistance does not end up being a fluke as we have seen this before which amounted to mere tokenism.