Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

When her hus­band died two years ago, Mar­il­la Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan used his gra­tu­ity to build a house for her­self and her five young chil­dren.

How­ev­er, Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan and her chil­dren are now fac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of home­less­ness as their new­ly built home is crum­bling in­to a land­slip at Third Branch Road, Mon­key Town, New Grant.

Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan said heavy rains over the past few weeks have caused ex­ten­sive dam­age to the foun­da­tion of her house. Each night she hears creaks as the house crum­bles.

"It is fright­en­ing be­cause any day now the cracked walls could fall down," Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan said.

She added, "I don't al­low my chil­dren to go to the back of the house. It is too dan­ger­ous. It pains me to see the house which I built falling and I can­not do any­thing to stop it."

She ex­plained that af­ter her hus­band Tyril Craig Lo­gan died from a heart at­tack at the age of 36, she was forced to move out of his fam­i­ly's home. She said $175,000 from his gra­tu­ity was used to build the house at New Grant.

Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan has five chil­dren- Tyrell, 14, Tishawn, 10, Tyrese, eight, Tah-maria, four and Tyrikk Lo­gan aged, six. Tyrell at­tends the Princes Town West Sec­ondary School while Tishawn and Tyrese at­tend the New Grant

An­gli­can school. Tyrikk has a dis­abil­i­ty and at­tends the Princes Eliz­a­beth school in Port-of-Spain. Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan said she pays $300 every week to take Tyrikk to and from school.

She said since her home start­ed to crack, she has been fear­ful about the safe­ty of her chil­dren.

"My son is dis­abled and he was born pre­ma­ture. I am wor­ried that one of these days the wall could fall on him. I want the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing to as­sist us in get­ting a prop­er place to stay be­cause it would cost too much to fix this house," Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan said.

The young wid­ow said she wrote let­ters to Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal with the hope that he could pro­vide a prop­er home for her fam­i­ly. Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan, who was pre­vi­ous­ly em­ployed with Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed said she des­per­ate­ly needs help.

Mooni­lal yes­ter­day promised to look in­to the sit­u­a­tion. Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Pat­ter­son-Lo­gan and her fam­i­ly can con­tact her at 360-0762.