Two women now remain at the ramshackle Chase’s Indigent Home in Robb Street and they are both hoping that they will be out of there before Christmas.
Avril Gordon, 70, and Ann Vieira, 79 are forced to endure living in a building with broken floorboards, shaky doors, shattered window panes and a roof that leaks when it rains. The toilet is broken and cannot flush and the wall and shelves of the kitchen are also falling apart. And despite the ongoing clean-up campaign, the drains surrounding the building and the yard are full of garbage.
Apart from this, the two pensioners are forced to pay a monthly electricity bill of $5,000 or over and have no access to potable water, since the pump was stolen. They said the pump was just one of many items that were stolen during the countless break-ins at the building.
Gordon, who said she has been residing there for the past 15 years, said, “It’s a shelter and I consider myself blessed to have something over my head.”
When Stabroek News visited, Vieira had just finished some chores and was sitting in the chapel. She shared concerns about the recent increase in crime. She said that another of her major concerns, too, is racism and whenever she can she talks to young people about it. Vieira said she is hoping to see peace and unity among all Guyanese someday.
The conditions at the Chase home had been highlighted by this newspaper in March this year and soon after, Vieira said, they had received a number of visitors who promised to help. At that time, the home had four residents, but two of them, including a 92-year-old have since been relocated – one at the Salvation Army and the other at Archer’s Home.
Gordon said a concerned citizen had promised to have her placed at Archer’s Home as well, but she is on hold as she understands that the home is currently under repairs.
Vieira, meanwhile, is hoping that within the next two months she also will be able to enjoy the comfort of her own home which is currently under construction with the assistance of her daughter in Sophia.
She said while she too considers herself fortunate to have shelter, she is disturbed at the present situation, which she can’t do anything but cope with.
“I never expected to stay here so long when I came,” Vieira stated. She said the years spent at the Chase’s Indigent Home were due to the fact that she was forced to find somewhere to stay some years ago, after her daughter had to move from the apartment they were living in due to some domestic problems.
Vieira said her daughter had tried very hard to complete the Sophia home, but a robbery had left her stalled. All that is needed to make the place livable is some zinc sheets, windows and doors and Vieira is hoping that it won’t be too long before she is able to enjoy the rest of her golden years with her daughter and family around.
Vieira said she was active as a teenager and now only has pains in her shoulder which she believes are due to the water she fetches every day.
“Is one five-gallon bucket I does beg them boys to bring up for me and that is what I does have to squeeze to bathe, cook and wash,” the woman said.
While this newspaper was present at the home, a vendor visited and left a meal with Vieira and was also making arrangements for water to be filled.
The women said everything at the home has changed over the years and this was because of the absence of the committee that once existed. The home consists of some 15 rooms which were once all filled.
The building is no longer even secure and Gordon has had to pay a youth to install come wooden bars on the windows.
“When you in here you can’t even get fresh air like before, because is sheer big buildings put up on all two sides now. So when I go out I does feel different,” Vieira related.
Gordon said she finds her own way to and from the home to collect her pension and also visit clinic on a monthly basis. The same applies to Vieira who uses a walking stick to move around in the public.
Chase’s Indigent Home was established in December 1964 for destitute elderly women. The building, in the past, had attracted many elderly women but of recent because of the rundown conditions there have been no new residents.
Both Gordon and Vieira said that the proprietor’s daughter is currently in the country and she had visited once with a construction worker and promised to return but had not done so up to yesterday.
According to the National Development Strategy 2001 – 2010 Chapter 26, many elderly people are vulnerable and living below the poverty line, especially those surviving on small pensions. It stated that “no special provisions are made either by the government or the private sector to enable them to live in a modicum of comfort.”
It highlighted that their nutrition is poor and health services available to them are inadequate, while private housing facilities are dilapidated and unmaintained.
