- A New Market, St Elizabeth, family has lived in an unfinished church hall since Hurricane Melissa
- They had lived in the church manse for three years after losing their rented home
- Church leaders let them stay in exchange for maintenance work
- Eight months on, the mother says they simply need a place to live
Churches are often the first shelter after a disaster. For one family in New Market, St Elizabeth, the church has also become the last. In July 2026 the Jamaica Star reported that Crystal Morrison-Spencer, 35, her husband and their four children, aged one, five, nine and 20, were still living in a small concrete room in an unfinished church hall, eight months after Hurricane Melissa.
Their housing troubles began before the storm. According to the Star, the family had lost the home they were renting because of financial hardship and had spent three years living in the church manse. Church leaders allowed them to stay on the property in exchange for maintenance work.
Then Melissa struck. Morrison-Spencer described the night of the storm: “We almost died… we almost died.” She recalled that “even the door bust off and fly in”, and that her daughter later told her: “Mommy, there is no church there for us to go.” Since then the family has been in the hall, a space normally used for funeral repasts and wedding receptions. “I have been living in the church hall… it’s like the pastor’s office,” she said.
The Star’s report did not mention any help from the National Housing Trust or government programmes. The headline carried the family’s plea: they just need somewhere to live.
The story shows how much informal housing support Jamaican churches already provide, from manses lent to struggling families to halls turned into bedrooms, and how fragile those arrangements are when a hurricane strikes. It also shows the gap between emergency shelter and a permanent home. For churches, it is a reason to look at the land and buildings they hold and ask whether some could provide proper transitional housing. For readers in the diaspora looking to help after Melissa, backing a church-linked rebuild or a family’s new home through a trusted congregation can turn temporary kindness into a lasting roof.
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