A Gleaner columnist offers a sharply different account of Coopers Pen: a landowner who tried dialogue and a facilitated purchase option for years before a 2010 court order, and a 2012 government intervention that actually slowed eviction.

A 2025 national count found 2,442 homeless people across all 14 parishes, almost half in Kingston and St Andrew, according to the latest Economic and Social Survey Jamaica.

About 75 Dutch churches close every year, and Arnhem’s former Sint-Jozefkerk is now a padel court, but a survey found two-thirds of Dutch people would rather see closed churches become libraries, cultural centres or homes.

Sunrise Community Church’s Hands On Ministry joined the charity ARK and local firms to repair a West Bay home with live wires, a leaking roof and standing water inside, for single mother of two Tina Ebanks-Jackson.

The Simpson-Whyte family has moved from a shelter into a rebuilt home in Seaford Town, Westmoreland, under an Angostura and Seprod Foundation hurricane recovery partnership.

Theodore Notise and his twin sons have moved into a concrete home in Flanker, St James, the first of ten being built by the GrassROOTS Community Foundation after Hurricane Melissa.

The New Testament Church of God in Barbados is converting its Fairchild Street headquarters into a community refuge centre, estimating about $500,000 in infrastructure costs and applying for a matching grant from a government fund for faith-based organisations.

The UDC says the 18-acre Portmore Resilience Park, featuring a large jogging track, sports courts, an indoor events complex and green space, should be completed later this year.

Hanover police say all four of the parish’s identified gangs have been neutralised, echoing the sustained crime turnaround language this publication has documented in neighbouring St James.

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund is undertaking a $27 billion, five- to six-year recovery programme aimed at rebuilding communities and schools in areas damaged by Hurricane Melissa.