Utilities, Food and Salaries: The Anglican Girls’ Home That Was in Crisis Before the Fire

• A board member said Wortley Home for Girls was in financial crisis before its 2015 fire
• The home struggled to pay utilities, food and salaries
• Government funding covered only about a quarter of the cost of caring for each girl, she said
• The rebuilt home can hold 32 girls but needs more staff to reach full capacity

Three years after fire damaged the Wortley Home for Girls in St Andrew, a board member revealed that the home’s troubles had started long before the flames. In February 2018 Tanya Wildish told the Jamaica Observer that the Anglican-run home had been in financial crisis before the June 2015 fire.

She described the pressures plainly: the home had struggled to pay its utilities, to buy food and to meet salaries.

According to Wildish, the government payment for each ward covered only about a quarter of what the home spent to maintain her, though she could not give exact figures. The home operates under the oversight of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency and was established by the Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

The rebuilt home, completed with support from Food For The Poor and the diocese, is larger and better equipped, with room for 32 girls instead of 24, a sick bay, a study room with computers, a modern security system, emergency staircases and landscaped grounds. But a bigger building brings bigger running costs. “I have to increase the staff complement before I can get to full capacity, but I have to figure out a way to pay them,” Wildish said.

The story shows a problem many church-run institutions face: raising money to build is easier than paying the monthly bills that follow. A new building draws donors; salaries, utilities and food rarely do. For churches planning housing or residential care, the running budget matters as much as the construction budget. For supporters in the diaspora, a regular monthly gift towards a home’s operating costs may do as much good as a one-off donation to a building fund.

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