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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Family of 18 homeless after fire razes house

by

20140701

Five-month-old Ke­shawn Kin­sale's fam­i­ly of 18 had to hud­dle on three twin-sized mat­tress­es on the floor of an ac­tiv­i­ty cen­tre last night, af­ter their home was de­stroyed by fire on Mon­day.Ke­shawn's grand­fa­ther Desmond Jais­eree and his fam­i­ly slept at the La Coste­na Ac­tiv­i­ty Cen­tre, in the Siparia con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, with noth­ing but the clothes that had been giv­en to them by neigh­bours.

Wear­ing a glum ex­pres­sion and clothed in a green track pants, Jais­eree, 36, wait­ed out­side a neigh­bour's home as fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers and Cepep work­ers in­spect­ed the rub­ble where his two-storey home once stood at Dil Mo­hammed Trace, Pe­nal Rock Road.Jais­eree lived there with his wife Stacey, moth­er, broth­er, sis­ter, his three chil­dren and his ba­by grand­son Ke­shawn, his sis­ter's three chil­dren and his broth­er's five chil­dren. The chil­dren's ages range from five months to 18 years old.

Re­call­ing the in­ci­dent, Jais­eree said he was sit­ting on the front steps of his home while every­one else was in­side.Short­ly af­ter 5.30 pm, he said, his wife Stacey, who had been down­stairs, ran out­side when she saw smoke com­ing from the back bed­room on the up­per floor.Rush­ing to the bed­room, Jais­eree saw the room was en­gulfed in flames.

"When I went to the back room, I saw the fire and it was big al­ready. I came out­side on the steps and called some guys and asked them for as­sis­tance to out the fire, but by the time they reached up­stairs, the fire was just rolling against the gal­vanise."Every­one else ran in­to the yard and my fam­i­ly was down­stairs so I just ran in and got every­body out and tried to go back in­side to see what doc­u­ments I could have saved. By the time I reached back in­side, the whole ceil­ing over my kitchen fell in, so I for­got about that."

He said the dam­age was es­ti­mat­ed at $300,000, and the chil­dren would not be able to at­tend school be­cause their school­books, uni­forms and cloth­ing were al­so de­stroyed.He sus­pects an elec­tri­cal prob­lem caused the fire.Mis­for­tune seems to fol­low the fam­i­ly, as Jais­eree said they spent Christ­mas Day sweep­ing mud­dy flood­wa­ters from their home, which re­sult­ed in $20,000 worth of dam­age to prop­er­ty, fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances.

"All the kids are go­ing to school and we were not able to save any­thing. All we have is the clothes on our back–and that is not even ours, peo­ple just gave that to us yes­ter­day evening. "We just need some­where to stay be­cause it is just not one or two of us that we can stay by a fam­i­ly's house. We just need some­where to stay un­til bet­ter could be done."

Jais­eree said a com­mit­tee mem­ber from the vil­lage coun­cil gave them per­mis­sion to stay at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, but it does not have a bath­room."School is go­ing to close so it will be a lit­tle eas­i­er for the while, un­til we can get a lit­tle stuff to get them for school."Adding to his woes is the fact that Jais­eree is un­em­ployed and lives on a dis­abil­i­ty grant, be­cause of a spinal in­jury he suf­fered in a mo­tor­cy­cle ac­ci­dent in 2008. His sis­ter Sharon al­so re­ceives pub­lic as­sis­tance grants.

"I suf­fered a chip on my low­er spine and twist on my up­per spine, so I can't stand too long or lift any­thing heavy. My mom is al­so on dis­abil­i­ty grants and my sis­ter's chil­dren are on pub­lic as­sis­tance, so there is no­body here with a big bank ac­count. Right now we are just liv­ing by the grace of God."Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact them at 345-9425, 342-7286 or 342-6403.


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