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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Another bleak Christmas for Ste Madeleine father and son

by

20131202

Last Christ­mas, the sto­ry of a Ste Madeleine man and his son liv­ing in a tent in­side their burnt-out home touched the hearts of many T&T Guardian read­ers.Promis­es were made by gov­ern­ment agen­cies to re­build their home.How­ev­er, a year lat­er, Al­lan Mal­oney and his son Daniel are still hud­dled in the same fire-rav­aged house wait­ing for the help they were promised.

"I don't know what to say. I just fed up. I don't know what to tell my son any more. If some­body told me a year ago that an­oth­er Christ­mas would meet us I wouldn't have be­lieved them. I can't be­lieve this thing," said a de­spon­dent Mal­oney.Sat­ur­day made it a year since fire de­stroyed their home at 78 Man­a­ham­bre Road."I was asked if I want­ed a house (HDC) or if I want­ed to re­build here. I should ah tell them I want a house be­cause look how long and noth­ing hap­pen­ing," he said when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed him.

Mal­oney and his son are liv­ing un­der the same con­di­tions of a year ago. The on­ly dif­fer­ence is that Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) work­ers cleared out the rub­ble and they are sleep­ing on a bed. When a news team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the burnt-out struc­ture, the room was dark, had a clam­my at­mos­phere and gave off a musty odour.There is no wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty, bath­room or toi­let.In spite of their wretched liv­ing con­di­tions, Daniel is flour­ish­ing, says his fa­ther.

"He re­al­ly do­ing good in school. When he got a rash and had to stay home for about two weeks, he cry to go to school."Cud­dling a kit­ten named Fur, giv­en to him by his teacher, Daniel said his bed gets wet when it rains."The wa­ter runs down from the wall and wet the edge of the bed," the fa­ther ex­plained.With no stove or fridge, Mal­oney said he some­times goes by a neigh­bour and cooks."Some­times he eat Chi­nese. He don't eat much," he said of his son.He has al­so ap­plied for a food card but says he is get­ting the runaround.

Any­one will­ing to help can con­tact Mal­oney at 379-8711.

Last Christ­mas

Mal­oney and his son lost all their be­long­ings when the fire gut­ted their two-storey home. When his plight was high­light­ed last De­cem­ber, good Samar­i­tans came to their res­cue, pay­ing for them to stay at Kapok Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain for Christ­mas.Then so­ca singer Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez stepped in. She paid for them to stay in an apart­ment for two months.It was ex­pect­ed that their house would have been re­built by then. In Feb­ru­ary, the two-month rental agree­ment ex­pired and Mal­oney and his son re­turned to the burnt-out house.

Why has noth­ing changed?

The Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help pro­vid­ed con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als through a $20,000 grant, af­ter de­lays with pa­per­work.The URP promised to pro­vide labour to re­build the house.Mal­oney, 55, a fridge and stove re­pair­man, said he felt re­lieved when he saw ma­te­ri­als be­ing dropped off.When the URP told him work­men were com­ing to start con­struc­tion, Mal­oney said he and his son stayed by a neigh­bour for a few days. But no work was done and thieves stole the alu­mini­um door frame and door­knobs.

As for the rest of the ma­te­ri­als, he said: "Most of the grav­el and sand wash away now, the ce­ment get hard, the nails rusty. The gal­vanise good still. I don't know what to say."The T&T Guardian was told ini­tial­ly by URP Princes Town re­gion­al man­ag­er In­di­ra Kat­wa­roo that scaf­fold­ing was need­ed. But then Stork Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices do­nat­ed the scaf­fold­ing and left it there for months. The T&T Guardian was then told that URP could not start work be­cause no bricks were pro­vid­ed.

Self Help chair­man Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo said the list of ma­te­ri­als sub­mit­ted to the com­mis­sion, did not in­clude bricks and the $20,000 grant had al­ready been spent.How­ev­er, Man­ga­roo said yes­ter­day he or­gan­ised the bricks, but the prob­lem is that they can­not get in con­tact with Mal­oney for them.

"The hard­ware will not drop it off un­less he signs for it. Mr Kevin Williams went by the gen­tle­man on two oc­ca­sions and he was not there. And we can­not reach him on the phone num­ber we have on our sys­tem," he added.


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