Three of the 25 families evicted from Housing Development Corporation (HDC) apartments at Harmony Hall, Gasparillo, on March 20 are still living in tents on the compound.
With the start of the rainy season they are now facing additional challenges, as their makeshift shelters are not protecting them and their belongings from the wet weather.
A heavy downpour on Sunday night pounded the tent occupied by Allison Dick and her five children, sweeping aside the tarpaulin and exposing the family, which includes seven-year-old twins Tyreese and Tyrol Jermia, to the rains. Dick’s older sons, Carlon, 16, Akeem, 18, and Raheem, nine, held on to the edges of the tent to prevent it from flying away.
Dick said almost everything the family owned, except for their clothes, a wooden table, their beds and a cupboard, has been destroyed. She said on Sunday night she prayed that the Guaracara River would not overflow its banks and wash away their meagre possessions.
Most of the families, who were evicted because they illegally occupied the apartments, have moved out. But Dick said she has not been able to find a place to live.
“It really hard for us. You think any mother in her right mind will suffer her children to live in these conditions? I really have no choice,” she said.
Dick said her eldest son, Akeem, got a job at United Security but the family still cannot find an affordable place to live.
“I am grateful that my children never abandoned me. My son uses all of his salary to care for all of us but we really suffering being here out in the cold,” she said.
She said their troubles began on July 12, 2006, when their home at Bunyon Trace, Moruga, was destroyed by fire. Dick’s three-year-old son, Atiba, died in the blaze.
There was a glimmer of hope when Dick was allocated an HDC apartment in Harmony Hall in 2010. The family lived for a few years paying a rent of $1,050 per month but hard times came after Dick was diagnosed with anaemia, hypertension and ovarian cysts.
When she fell behind on her rent because of ill health, Dick went to the HDC, Social Welfare and National Family Services to get help. In 2014, in an act of desperation, Dick moved her family into an unoccupied apartment next door.
“That was a mistake because I lost my legitimate home and now I have nowhere to go,” she said.
She is disputing claims by HDC officials that the families were evicted because the apartments were condemned and structurally unsound. She said there are families legally occupying other apartments in the same building.
Housing Minister Randall Mitchell declined comment on the Harmony Hall issue yesterday. He told the T&T Guardian the matter had already been dealt with.
“I have spoken on this already,” he said, adding that further questions should be directed to his communications officer Maurisa Findlay.
