Six Homes, 500 Residents and Falling Donations: Missionaries of the Poor Get Help Through the Pandemic

• Missionaries of the Poor runs six homes in Jamaica caring for about 500 people
• Residents include elderly people, people with mental illness and disabilities, and children
• The JN Foundation donated 500 care packages in July 2020
• The order said in-kind donations had fallen and outreach had been curtailed by COVID-19

Missionaries of the Poor, the Catholic religious order founded in 1981 by Father Richard Ho Lung, houses some of Jamaica’s most vulnerable people. In July 2020 the Jamaica Observer reported that the JN Foundation had donated 500 care packages to help the order’s homes through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The order runs six homes caring for about 500 people, including elderly people, people with mental health challenges, people with disabilities and children. Its facilities are on Hanover Street, Laws Street, High Holborn Street and Heroes’ Circle in downtown Kingston, and at Golden Spring in St Andrew.

The packages contained basic food, toiletries, canned goods and household cleaning products. Brother Elijah Kujur said: “We appreciate this contribution given by the JN Foundation, which will assist us to meet the needs of our homes.” He noted that there had been no COVID-19 infections in the homes, but that in-kind donations had fallen and outreach programmes had been cut back.

JN Foundation general manager Onyka Barrett Scott said: “We are happy to be in a position to partner with Missionaries of the Poor in a meaningful way.”

Most of the listed facilities are in downtown Kingston. Housing 500 vulnerable people across six sites depends on a steady flow of food, supplies and money, and the pandemic showed how quickly that flow can slow. Faith-based homes like these provide care that would otherwise fall to the State or to families who cannot cope. For Jamaicans abroad, regular support for established homes, whether through cash, supplies or volunteering when travel allows, helps keep roofs over people with nowhere else to go. For churches, it is a reminder that housing ministry needs reliable income as well as buildings.

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