Aruba’s Choller Problem, Second Relief Center will come in Oranjestad

The choller problem continues to be an issue on One Happy Island. The number of homeless and drug addicts has drastically increased in Aruba in the past few years. Still think its the same Aruba as it ever was?

Amigoe, May 14, 2007: Most likely a second relief for chollers in Oranjestad    

ORANJESTAD — Despite heavy criticism expressed by politics, proprietors, and citizens on the government’s relief-policy for the homeless in the past months, Public-health-minister Booshi Wever (MEP) continues to back his policy.   He didn’t exclude during a debate in Parliament last Friday that a second relief center will come in Oranjestad.    

The minister says that the current relief center Dak riba Cabez – the former Hotel Central – offers accommodation to 50 homeless drug addicts and that all the beds are currently taken.   He continues to insist that the relief center must stay in its current location.   He even thinks that a second one must future, because the number of homeless people has drastically increased in the last few years.   He also says that he likes the idea of the relief center, where the drug addicts can get a bite to eat and because of this, be less aggressive.   However, AVP , MPA, and RED are of the opinion that Wever is undermining the current problems and has to attend to the pleading of the community, who want the relief center in the center of town be closed down and moved elsewhere.   They do not want the chollers in the center of town.

AVP also showed a report of the Drug Control Coordination Bureau that mentions the lack of relief centers in Oranjestad and Dakota.   The minister could not even give figures on the addicted homeless persons that have rehabilitated after their stay in the relief centers.   “If the minister’s objection is to fill the stomach of the drug addicted homeless people, why does he need 2 million florins for that now?   When I was a priest, I also helped with a project that feeds the homeless and it definitely didn’t cost this much, said Rudy Lampe of RED.