Mary, 43, is a mother of three, the eldest of whom is 13 years old. She works as a security officer and is a squatter.
Four years ago, Mary was given the “deal of a lifetime”. She was offered a one bedroom wooden house located at a forested area in East Trinidad for $10,000.
At the time Mary got that offer she was renting a one bedroom apartment with her family for $1,500.
One day at work while Mary was complaining about her landlord and her rent being “dead money” a co-worker told her about a man selling houses in the hills.
Mary eventually met the man and he showed her the house and told her the price. Mary said she was faced with a “hard decision”.
“I knew it was technically wrong because I knew he was squatting on the land but I had to think of my family first.
Rent was hell, it was like putting my money into a black hole. I had an application for a house with the HDC (Housing Development Corporation) for at least ten years with no word from them and I could not realistically afford a house at the price they were being sold,” she said.
After days of going and back and forth mentally, Mary made up her mind. She took a loan from her credit union and paid the man.
He provided her with paperwork from a “bush lawyer” which she knows cannot legitimately stand any legal due diligence.
“Do I regret what I did? No, I don’t. Yes, I know it is technically wrong but I am not hurting anyone,” Mary told the Sunday Guardian.
She and her family sleep on a single mattress at night. There is no electricity or running water. She said she is just glad to have a roof over her head.
Mary and her three children are among the 50,000 families estimated to be squatting in T&T according to social surveys done by the Land Settlement Agency (LSA).
It is estimated that some 200,000 people are squatting.
CEO of the LSA Hazar Hosein said squatting had been “mushrooming” in this country.
The LSA, an agency of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, has embarked on a campaign to highlight the issue and deter people from engaging in the illegal activity.
Hosein said in the State Land (Regularisation of Tenure) Act in 1998 some 251 squatting sites were listed across the country. Since then the LSA has discovered another 100 squatting sites.
The fastest growing squatting population is in Valencia, Hosein said
“We’ve seen a trend that a lot of squatting follows the quarries,” he said.
While Mary feels her squatting is not necessarily hurting anyone, Hosein had a completely different take on the situation.
“The most depressing part is the destruction of the forest reserves. In my mind that stands out and that is something that we have to deal with immediately because these lands are considered forest reserves, they are the scientific reserves they are environmentally sensitive areas and that is the one that hurts the most in terms of some of these squatting areas,” he said.
“If we destroy our forests that has long term effects on all of us, our entire population, our rainfall,” he said.
Hosein said apart from Valencia, another significant squatting area in recent times is Point Fortin.
He lamented the conditions of some of the squatting sites in the country.
“We want the population to be aware of some very deplorable conditions in many squatting sites. No roads, no drains, no running water, no electricity and it is families living there, people living there. So our task is not only to contain the squatting but to improve the standard of living in these sites,” he said.
Hosein recalled a time when the LSA developed some 1000 lots across the country that were eventually taken over by squatters. This occurred at Race Course Road in Arima (Carapo), Bon Air North (Windy Hill), KP Lands in Valencia and Pine Settlement in Sangre Grande.
The loss to the State was calculated at $2 million.
Another troubling issue, Hosein said, is the rise of the “squat lords” who capitalise on people’s desperation for housing and land.
“There is a trend now that you have a number of persons with resources who are engaged in this activity. They are clearing lands, they are selling state lands, we call them ‘squat lords’,” Hosein said.
While in Mary’s case the house was sold to her, according to statistics 25 per cent of squatters were “renting” from people who moved on to state lands and unlawfully erected structures.
According to reports, at Waterwheel Road in Diego Martin, a “squat lord” built an eight-room apartment building on State land and has been renting it out.
In most instances “squat lords” are posing as official representatives of the state and claiming land as their own.
In an attempt to battle all these various issues with respect to squatting the LSA has set up a hotline to report illegal squatting.
The hotline is 866-1111.
“We are really targeting this campaign, not solely as a means for information, but to spur people into action. Many persons would have seen, or would see on a daily basis probably, structures going up on state land and they know that that is state land.
“We want them to also help the LSA by reporting. We want people not to only be encouraged but empowered to report what they see,” Corporate Communications Manager at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Dike Noel said.
