Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Crim­i­nals con­duct­ing il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties from their Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) rent­ed homes have be­come the tar­get of its man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jear­lean John. "I am say­ing very firm­ly, while I am the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the HDC, I will not be a part of the sub­sidi­s­a­tion of crime," John said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day morn­ing. "As the land­lord, it is in our (the HDC's) in­ter­est to en­sure that our ten­ants en­joy a cer­tain qual­i­ty of life. "So all these com­plaints about peo­ple ped­dling drugs or gam­bling and en­gag­ing in de­viant be­hav­iour (from their HDC homes), as the land­lord it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that does not hap­pen." John stressed HDC apart­ments, such as the ones on Ox­ford Street, Port-of-Spain, "would be go­ing at a rate of $3,000 a month" in rent but their oc­cu­pants paid be­tween $100 to $350 each month.

"They (the apart­ments) are heav­i­ly sub­sidised. We have to en­sure that peo­ple who are liv­ing there en­joy a stan­dard of liv­ing; there is a qual­i­ty of life," John said. "They are ten­ants. They are not own­ers. There is a cer­tain ex­pec­ta­tion. So we are com­ing fast and heavy with that." John said that "a strong, strong warn­ing" was be­ing sent to HDC renters, such as in Mal­oney, that were us­ing their Gov­ern­ment-sub­sidised homes to con­duct crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. She said, "Al­ready, we have been talk­ing to the po­lice in those com­mu­ni­ties. "When we have re­ports (about crime), we have our head of se­cu­ri­ty li­aise with the po­lice in the com­mu­ni­ty. We send a let­ter im­me­di­ate­ly to the per­son who is ob­served en­gag­ing in the de­viant be­hav­iour. We tell them to cease and de­sist," she said.