Less Than a Quarter of the Funding: The Nuns Who Ran Alpha Boys’ Home Stop Housing Children

• The Sisters of Mercy said residential care at Alpha would end by June 2014
• About 120 boys were living at the home at the time
• The nuns cited the high cost of care and serious behavioural problems
• A source said the home got less than a quarter of state-home funding

One of Jamaica’s best-known church-run children’s homes is to stop housing children. The Jamaica Observer reported that the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic order that runs Alpha Boys’ Home in Kingston, would end residential care by June 2014. About 120 boys were living there when the decision was announced by Minister Lisa Hanna at a press conference at her ministry on Trafalgar Road.

Ms Hanna said the nuns had pointed to the changing needs of children in state care. “The Sisters of Mercy cited the grave antisocial behaviour of children in the care system, the sexual predatory nature of the boys on one another, children who are witnesses of serious crimes or are victims of heinous acts, and who are non-responsive to traditional interventions for which their institutions have been equipped to provide,” she said.

Money was also part of the story. The minister said the challenge was compounded by “the high cost of care for each child”, which she said was beyond the capacity of the order’s resources and limited its ability to meet basic operating demands. An Observer source said the home had been receiving less than a quarter of the funds given to government-run homes, despite repeated pleas by the nuns to be brought on par.

Alpha Boys’ School would continue as a day school, with enrolment expected to rise, and the music and education programmes would go on. Some boys would return to their families, while others would be moved. “We will see if some are fit to go back to their parents and the others will be housed at the St John Bosco Home,” Ms Hanna said.

Church-run homes have for generations carried a large share of Jamaica’s responsibility for children who cannot live with their families, often on land and in buildings the churches themselves own and maintain. Alpha’s decision shows what happens when the cost of running such a residence outpaces what the state is willing to pay. For churches, donors and diaspora supporters, the question is not only how to fund a building, but how to fund the staff and specialist care that make a residential home safe.

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