Aubrey Squires and Milton Massiah will be spending Christmas on the streets but to them that’s not a great problem.
“At least we does eat,” Massiah told Stabroek News yesterday. “We does get a little clothing. You know, people try to make it light specially at Christmas time.”
Massiah who sleeps in a room in a house owed by his overseas-based sister and Squires who sleeps on the road claim to prefer the road to any of the shelters provided by the Government of Guyana.
“The Night Shelter? It stink! So we can’t think about going there. Not because we dey pon the street mean we gotta live under dem condition,” Squires said.
He prefers to make his bed in front of a Chinese store on Alexander Street.
“They don’t stop you once you clean the place up in the morning when you get up,” Squires said.
They claim that on the road, “At least somebody does come and mek sure we eat at least once a day and we does catch we hand by carrying
thing for people in the market. They got nice, kind-hearted people on this road hay, who know ’bout life and living.”
Massiah said, “We got we needs and you can’t be begging a man for a hundred every day. So if they come and say carry these things in the market for me, we does do it and collect a lil small piece.”
Massiah is 68 and Squires is 63, but neither of them are able to collect old age pension. According to them this is because they do not have birth certificates.
“I was born in 1947, July 29. My mother’s name is Edna Massiah. My father’s name is Winston Massiah. I know all this information but I don’t have a birth certificate. I’ve applied about four times at the post office and they say they gonna mail it home, yet it neva reach,” Massiah said
Squires lost his documents in a fire at Bella Dam, Pouderoyen and has since been unable to replace them.
They know that they are entitled to public assistance but have not been able to access it because of a lack of these vital documents.
“Last time I work was 1987. I was working on trawler and one of the net hit me and I had to spend about six days in Berbice Hospital. Since then, I on the road off and on, ’cause the bone shatter and pieces left in me,” Massiah said
According to Squires, he was gainfully employed as recently as April of this year. “I worked 18 years with Sentinel Security…,” he said.
Both men were unfamiliar with the Hugo Chavez Centre for Rehabilitation and Reintegration at Onverwagt. Asked if they would be willing to relocate there, they said no.
“Watch them distance, how you coming to town to work? We don’t mind working. We are the working class but we want the assistance we are entitled to,” Squires said.
Asked about family Massiah explains that his family is overseas. “My sister, she in the states and my daughter with her mother in Canada. They don’t send money but they does send things,” he said.
Squires however states that he remains separate from his family because he “ain’t able with the disrespect. People calling you junkie. I is not a junkie. I got me habits I does smoke cigarette and drink lil alcohol but I is not a junkie. The eye pass I don’t need.”
Both men, not surprisingly, are hoping that in the new year they can have their lost birth certificates replaced. They are also asking for a “special provision” in the 2016 Budget.