Trinidad couple sleeps in tent after HDC eviction

(Trinidad Guardian) Ja­mal Young and his wife Nar­i­va St Rose are sleep­ing un­der a tent in Cou­va af­ter their home and shop were torn down by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion last week.

De­spite their des­per­ate cir­cum­stances, Young con­tin­ues to work day and night with the hope of ac­cu­mu­lat­ing enough mon­ey for a prop­er place to live.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Young said his fam­i­ly has been op­er­at­ing the Point Lisas Fresh Fruit and Veg­eta­bles shop since 2000 which was out­fit­ted with elec­tric­i­ty and run­ning wa­ter. A pho­to­graph of the shop showed a large sign, tiled floors and a wide ex­panse of fruits, veg­eta­bles, drinks, pro­vi­sions and vend­ing ma­chines.

Young saved and bought a new sno-cone ma­chine for $8,000. He grew med­i­c­i­nal herbs around the shop and sold roast­ed fish for his cus­tomers. Many came to him with ail­ments and he di­ag­nosed nat­ur­al reme­dies.

His busi­ness start­ed to ex­pand but ear­li­er this year Young said an­oth­er busi­ness per­son with gov­ern­ment links re­port­ed him to HDC, say­ing he was oc­cu­py­ing the land il­le­gal­ly.

“On June 18 last year, I re­ceived a no­tice to va­cate. The let­ter stat­ed that Young must sub­mit all doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to the land oc­cu­pa­tion and hous­ing unit at Lisas Boule­vard and South­ern Main Road, Cou­va. The HDC said if I did not sub­mit doc­u­ments, I could be evict­ed,” Young re­called. A few weeks lat­er he de­cid­ed to drop all the doc­u­ments to the Of­fice of the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing Ed­mund Dil­lon.

“I sub­mit­ted an af­fi­davit from the JP say­ing I have oc­cu­pied the land for 20 years. I sub­mit­ted my elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter bills as well as the busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments. I al­so re­quest­ed per­mis­sion to up­grade,” Young said.

On May 1 this year, Young said he got an ac­knowl­edge­ment let­ter from the min­is­ter on his re­quest to ob­tain per­mis­sion to up­grade the premis­es. The let­ter ad­vised Young that his re­quest was for­ward­ed to the HDC for at­ten­tion.

Last Wednes­day, while his wife was con­duct­ing sales and Young was at work, the de­mo­li­tion crews moved in de­stroy­ing every­thing, Young said.

“It was trau­mat­ic that every­thing I worked hard for is gone. They mash up every­thing. This ex­pen­sive chiller gone, the rain wet it and it’s not work­ing. My sno-cone ma­chine de­stroyed. All my stocks of fruits, veg­eta­bles and pro­vi­sions gone. My bed, house­hold ar­ti­cles, every­thing gone,” he wept.

Say­ing he was just a small man try­ing to make it in life, Young said his cus­tomers have been giv­ing him the strength to cope. ADL dropped a tent for me to use in the mean­time. My peo­ple are telling me to be strong. Ian Al­leyne put me in touch with a lawyer. It is very un­fair what hap­pened to us,” Young said.

While he waits for le­gal ad­vice, Young said he was con­tin­u­ing to sleep in the tent.

“I can­not leave the rest of my pos­ses­sions here for some­one to thief it. I am beg­ging to get help. It is on­ly fair that if the HDC evicts me while my case was be­ing re­viewed that they pro­vide a place for us to live,” he said. Young said he was will­ing to give up his spot but he said he want­ed a home of his own.

Any­one want­i­ng to con­tact Young to lend as­sis­tance can call 328-5859.