AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah @guardian.co.tt

A Ch­agua­nas fam­i­ly was left home­less af­ter work­ers, al­leged­ly at­tached to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), stormed their home and de­stroyed their be­long­ings in what they de­scribe as an “il­le­gal evic­tion.”

Za­kiya Ram­sey, her hus­band and their three chil­dren said they were stunned as the HDC agents forced their way in­to her Ed­in­burgh 500 apart­ment on Sat­ur­day and al­leged­ly smashed and dis­man­tled the home she had lived in since 2016.

She main­tains she owes no ar­rears and was not squat­ting. Ram­sey said she had le­gal per­mis­sion from HDC to oc­cu­py the prop­er­ty while wait­ing for re­lo­ca­tion, af­ter HDC al­leged­ly mis­al­lo­cat­ed an apart­ment which was al­ready al­lo­cat­ed to her.

“We sup­posed to be re­lo­cat­ed with the mon­ey we al­ready pay,” an emo­tion­al Ram­sey told Guardian Me­dia. “I lost every­thing be­cause HDC ain’t do what they’re sup­posed to do.”

She said the evic­tion was abu­sive, with agents al­leged­ly throw­ing ap­pli­ances and house­hold items from the up­per floor, leav­ing the fam­i­ly with­out be­long­ings— in­clud­ing her chil­dren’s lap­tops and school sup­plies, leav­ing them un­able to at­tend school to­day. “What they ain’t mash up, they for­get to mash up. I can­not pick up any­thing here to use…they come here with a men­tal to de­stroy. Well, they de­stroyed me.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the home, the fam­i­ly was sleep­ing on a ru­ined mat­tress in the rain, with bro­ken house­hold items strewn across the grass, some tan­gled in a near­by tree.

Rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly, at­tor­ney Steven Maw­er said he will be pur­su­ing le­gal ac­tion for dam­ages, as­sault and the ma­li­cious de­struc­tion of prop­er­ty.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed hous­ing min­is­ter David Lee, who said he has re­quest­ed a re­port from HDC man­age­ment to ful­ly un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion.