Squat­ting camps have be­come eye­sores all over Trinidad and since the au­thor­i­ties are turn­ing a blind eye to this can­cer in our land; soon squat­ters will be­come a law un­to them­selves.It is bad enough to see shanties in the hills, but when they are around hous­es for which the home own­ers had to go through all the prop­er and le­gal chan­nels be­fore they could build, while squat­ters can just erect their struc­tures with­out any au­tho­ri­sa­tion, then it just shows a lack of any will on the part of those who have to reg­u­late hous­ing.

In Al­ta Gra­cia, Mara­cas there is a vir­tu­al vil­lage in plain sight over­look­ing hous­es, and ab­solute­ly no one in au­thor­i­ty seems to give a hoot. In fact, a cesspit was built on the land of a le­gal landown­er, who it seems now can't build or even sell the land if he want­ed, just be­cause of this eye­sore.

Not on­ly is squat­ting an eye­sore, but some squat­ters can "own" as much land as they want for free, since these struc­tures are just thrown up; should any calami­ty take place, then these il­le­gals would want Gov­ern­ment to help them, which means le­gal home own­ers and tax­pay­ers would have to as­sist.Come on, au­thor­i­ties do your job: stop squat­ting. Don't just give let­ters of com­fort, as you are just en­cour­ag­ing law­less­ness.

Cler­mont An­drews