Squat­ting in T&T has al­ways been an op­tion for low-in­come or no-in­come house­holds, who strug­gle dai­ly to sur­vive in a fast de­vel­op­ing Third World state, crip­pled by high in­fla­tion, high un­em­ploy­ment and com­pe­ti­tion for cheap gov­ern­ment hous­es. This in­abil­i­ty to le­git­i­mate­ly ac­quire dwelling units has led to squat­ting on va­cant parcels of state land, in many cas­es, in high-risk, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly un­safe ar­eas. As a re­sult, more than 250,000 peo­ple in T&T have been squat­ting along old train­lines, on the banks of rivers and even along the coasts. At Kings Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, weath­ered wood­en and gal­vanised shacks re­main an eye­sore on the coast­line where they stand in dis­ar­ray.

Along the old aban­doned train­lines at Gol­con­da, Mara­bel­la, Pic­ton, Gas­par­il­lo, Williamsville and Princes Town, vast squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties have cropped up. Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal es­ti­mates T&T's squat­ting pop­u­la­tion to be in ex­cess of 250,000 peo­ple, while Chair­man of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency Dr Allen Sam­my says on­ly about 50,000 of these squat on pri­vate lands lo­cat­ed at South Oropouche, Fyz­abad and Wood­land. How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the Guardian have re­vealed that in re­cent times, a new type of squat­ting has start­ed in T&T. Now some well-off cit­i­zens have start­ed grab­bing for land along with the poor and des­ti­tute.

Busi­ness own­ers, even those in the heart of the south city of San Fer­nan­do, have al­so be­gun squat­ting on pave­ments by erect­ing per­ma­nent food stalls and fix­tures. The City Cor­po­ra­tion has not dealt with these "squat­ters" al­leged­ly be­cause they have "gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions." In the sec­ond part of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, RAD­HI­CA SOOKRAJ ex­am­ines the in­crease in squat­ting in some parts of south Trinidad, months af­ter the Gov­ern­ment closed off on a $252 mil­lion loan from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank to reg­u­larise squat­ters.

Land grab con­tin­ues

It has been months since Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sound­ed a warn­ing to squat­ters to de­sist from land-grab­bing, say­ing any new unau­tho­rised struc­tures would be torn down by the State. This was the reper­cus­sion of an elec­tion promise in May 2010 to reg­u­larise all il­le­gal squat­ters, a state­ment that trig­gered a grab for land at Diego Mar­tin, Tu­na­puna, San­gre Grande, Point Fortin, Cashew Gar­dens and parts of Ari­ma. The Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to spend $151 mil­lion to up­grade squat­ter com­mu­ni­ties, reg­u­larise their land ti­tles, al­low com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion/con­sul­ta­tion and, where nec­es­sary, fa­cil­i­tate squat­ter re­lo­ca­tion.

Squat­ters are al­so ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from $21 mil­lion in home im­prove­ment grants un­der a loan agree­ment be­tween the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and the T&T Gov­ern­ment. Un­der the agree­ment, Gov­ern­ment must re­pay the IDB loan some six-and-a-half years to 25 years lat­er, while in­ter­est will be paid based on the Lon­don In­ter­bank Of­fered Rate (LI­BOR). How­ev­er, as the Gov­ern­ment be­gins squat­ter reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion, un­scrupu­lous land grab­bers have tak­en con­trol of some parts of Point Fortin and have be­gun sell­ing land to squat­ters. Among the ar­eas af­fect­ed are Spring Trace, War­den Road Ex­ten­sion and the Gaza Strip.

Sev­er­al squat­ters said they paid as much as $1,000 for a lot of land at War­den Road. One squat­ter at Salazar Trace, Point Fortin, said he paid $8,000 for a house and two lots of land for which he re­ceived a cer­tifi­cate of com­fort in 2005. But while such trans­ac­tions have tak­en place over the years, a new trend of "high class squat­ting" is sur­fac­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Gol­con­da and Point Fortin. At War­den Road Ex­ten­sion, long- es­tab­lished squat­ters have com­plained that peo­ple who al­ready have homes are build­ing con­crete struc­tures in the area, be­cause they have "gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions." A squat­ter, Venice Ben­jamin, said she was con­cerned about the in­creased num­bers of squat­ters putting up con­crete homes, but not liv­ing in them at War­den Road.

"A lot of peo­ple have their house but they com­ing to Point Fortin and they block­ing up land be­cause they know the Gov­ern­ment will give them a deed of com­fort," she said. "These peo­ple don't live here...Just be­hind my house a cou­ple came and they start­ed to build a con­crete house. They nev­er came back. If you poor, would you be able to af­ford a con­crete house? "The house is not fin­ished but peo­ple work­ing on it. I be­lieve if you want to squat to get out of rent, then you will be ea­ger to move in­to the house. Why build a house and then leave it? It must be that they have an­oth­er place to live," Ben­jamin said there were two spots close by where con­crete struc­tures were built. Both hous­es were flat with a sol­id con­crete foun­da­tions, but no roof.

Ben­jamin said since she moved in­to the area in 2009, a dozen new hous­es have sprung up, but she said she did not know some of the own­ers. The ma­jor­i­ty of new squat­ters, she claimed, came from Egypt Vil­lage, Hol­ly­wood and New Vil­lage, Point Fortin. Mean­while, high on the hills of War­den Road Ex­ten­sion is an area known as the "Gaza." Here sev­en new struc­tures can be seen. The one room shacks were built with ply­board and out­fit­ted with clear lou­vre panes. Some of the home own­ers were seen ham­mer­ing nails on the roof and in­stalling win­dows. More than 15 acres of for­est were cleared to fa­cil­i­tate these new squat­ters.

One of the squat­ters, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said: "Peo­ple have to live you know. What they want us to do, com­mit crime? We try­ing to have a de­cent, hon­est life like any­one else." An­oth­er of the es­tab­lished oc­cu­pants said she got per­mis­sion to build her home two years ago from a man called Fre­do Ber­nett, who died ear­li­er this year. The woman, who lives with her four chil­dren, said Ber­nett en­cour­aged most of the squat­ters to clear land and oc­cu­py parts of War­den Road. It is be­lieved that Ber­nett al­so col­lect­ed funds from those he grant­ed land. "Fre­do was the man who told me to come in here," she said. "There were out­siders who were com­ing in and he start­ed to get the peo­ple whom he knew to move in here...Some peo­ple pay, but I didn't."

Res­i­dents of Spring Trace, Point Fortin, said they al­so heard of "rich, big shot peo­ple" block­ing up land in Point Fortin. "They can­not come on this side. We want to know who you are if you come in here. On this side we look out for each oth­er. Most of the peo­ple who squat are young peo­ple," one of them said. One res­i­dent, Carl­ton Ber­nett, ad­mit­ted he charged squat­ters $600 to clear lands. He, how­ev­er, de­nied he sold land to squat­ters. "What! Sell gov­ern­ment land? That is lock­up. I nev­er sell gov­ern­ment land to any­body," Ber­nett said. He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, to help­ing out fel­low squat­ters by mark­ing off one plot parcels and clear­ing the land. "I charge $400 to clear and $200 to make bo­ka and burn," he said.

Since he start­ed clear­ing land, Ber­nett said more than 300 squat­ters have set­tled in Point Fortin on a sev­en acre plot of land. He de­nied that high-class squat­ters were com­ing in from out­side to oc­cu­py land.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was need to put in place an ef­fec­tive land use man­age­ment pol­i­cy as well as to re­view the present leg­is­la­tion rel­e­vant to the Squat­ter Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion Act 25 of 1998.

Busi­ness squat­ting in South

Mean­while, at Gol­con­da, res­i­dents say a promi­nent busi­ness­man who op­er­ates a mo­bile food out­let and owns sev­er­al prop­er­ties is be­lieved to have oc­cu­pied two plots of state land off the M2 Ring Road in Debe and in Princes Town. A res­i­dent of Gol­con­da said: "This man so shame­less...We all know that he owns (name called) but he liv­ing here be­cause he want land. How much land you could live on? When he dead you think he could car­ry the land?" The Guardian made sev­er­al vis­its to the area, but was nev­er able to see the busi­ness­man at the house.

Mean­while, at Cipero Street, San Fer­nan­do, busi­ness own­er Marie Em­manuel has set up per­ma­nent res­i­dence next to the pave­ment, right un­der the noses of the City Cor­po­ra­tion. Over the years, the food han­dler has man­aged to se­cure wa­ter con­nec­tion, elec­tric­i­ty, tele­phone and even Di­rect TV, al­though she has no le­git­i­mate claim to the land. How­ev­er, Em­manuel says she pays $1,000 in rent month­ly to the Cor­po­ra­tion. She said she had been oc­cu­py­ing the spot since the 1980's and could not be con­sid­ered a squat­ter. "I buy this spot for $20,000 from a woman who used to sell here in the 1980's...Every­thing I have I work for," she said.

She not­ed, how­ev­er, that many il­le­git­i­mate fix­tures were be­ing erect­ed along the streets of San Fer­nan­do. She said the City Cor­po­ra­tion should re­move any­one who did not pay tax­es or rent to the City Cor­po­ra­tion, but reg­u­larise those who did. San Fer­nan­do may­or Mar­lene Coudray could not be reached for com­ment but in an ear­li­er in­ter­view she said at­tempts were be­ing made to reg­u­larise squat­ters. Last De­cem­ber, 257 fam­i­lies from 26 squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties scat­tered across the coun­try re­ceived their Cer­tifi­cates of Com­fort (COC). The Prime Min­is­ter said at the time that statu­to­ry leas­es would be give, fol­lowed by deeds of own­er­ship.

She said there was a need for a land use man­age­ment pol­i­cy and a re­view of Act 25 of 1998 by the Min­istry of Hous­ing, the LSA and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's de­part­ment, since this will al­low Gov­ern­ment to iden­ti­fy the dif­fi­cul­ties in­volved and cor­rect­ly al­lo­cate lands. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so point­ed out that 20 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion was liv­ing be­low the pover­ty lev­el and 20 per cent are squat­ting on State and pri­vate lands. Mooni­lal, not­ed that the LSA had re­ceived some 23,300 ap­pli­ca­tions from squat­ters for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion while there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 125,000 ap­pli­cants for hous­es. He al­so said mea­sures would be put in place to strength­en the LSA and its in­sti­tu­tions and re­sources as well as ad­dress im­bal­ances which might have tak­en place over the past eight years.

• Un­oc­cu­pied con­crete homes un­der con­struc­tion

• New wood­en shacks spring up

• Busi­ness own­er squats on San­do pave­ment