After their pleas for help went unheard, some of the families that occupied the range houses that collapsed last month at East La Penitence have resorted to building temporary shelters using the material from the ruins.
After the two houses collapsed in mid-January, the families issued appeals to the public for assistance to rebuild the places that they had called home for some 23 years. However, they say no one responded to their pleas with tangible help and many of them were forced to sleep in the yard for days.
They were visited by officials from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), who advised them to visit the entity’s office so they could start the process of acquiring house lots but nothing was said about rebuilding the houses in the interim.
Felicia Nixon, who resided in one of the houses with her three minor children, said that she got fed up of sleeping in the yard and was scared of her children getting sick, so she built a one-room shack with materials from the collapsed buildings.
Nixon told Sunday Stabroek that she worked daily to build the shelter and even though it “ain’t much,” she was comfortable and glad that her children once again had a roof over their heads.
Nixon added that the families were told that only some of them are likely to receive house lots and she said that even if she got one, her children still need a place to protect them from the elements.
Further, Nixon said, they are expecting a visiting from the CH&PA on Wednesday but they were not told what the meeting would be about.
The other families, with the exception of one, have also started building their own temporary shelters. “We just realise that nobody gon’ help us with nothing,” Mirella Blackman, 23, said. The mother of one said that she is currently staying with her mother but hopes to regain her independence soon as she is also planning to build a temporary shelter.
Meanwhile, despite protests by other families, Natasha Alexander and her three children have moved back into the partially collapsed building that they once occupied. Alexander justified her actions, saying that even though she is working she has three children who are attending secondary school and she has to ensure they have an education. She added that she has nowhere to go and was also fed up of sleeping in the yard, so she decided to go back into the house. “We does get wet up one-one time’ but it better than sleeping outside,” she said.
Alexander further disclosed that she visited the Ministry of Social Protection recently to inform them about the situation in the housing compound but they only gave her two bags of flour and a mattress.
Rhonda Nedd, who is currently building her own shelter, said that she is still sleeping “about the yard” but hopes to finish building soon. She said that most families have given up in receiving any assistance. “But we good now,” the defiant woman said.
