Sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents at the San Fer­nan­do Cen­tre for Dis­placed Per­sons are liv­ing in fear as a land­slide con­tin­ues to push against the build­ing, push­ing mud in­to the premis­es. 

Orig­i­nat­ing last No­vem­ber, the mud­slide has al­ready de­mol­ished a store­room and oblit­er­at­ed a rear wall, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the build­ing at La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, chair­man of the cen­tre, Asad Ya­coobali, warned that on­go­ing rains will ex­ac­er­bate the cri­sis, adding it is on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore the kitchen and oth­er ar­eas col­lapse. 

Ya­coobali called on the Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate con­trac­tors to vis­it the fa­cil­i­ty im­me­di­ate­ly and pro­vide as­sis­tance.

“When the ini­tial land­slide took place, we lost the stor­age room. The cen­tre is now ex­posed and has got­ten worse. The sec­ond stor­age room and kitchen are now com­pro­mised. We are at a stage where we are very wor­ried and des­per­ate,” Ya­coobali said.

The cen­tre cur­rent­ly serves as a haven for 30 so­cial­ly dis­placed in­di­vid­u­als who re­ly on it for meals and lodg­ing. 

How­ev­er, Ya­coobali said if the shel­ter had to close, these in­di­vid­u­als would have no choice but to re­turn to the streets.

Since its es­tab­lish­ment in 2019, the cen­tre has ac­com­mo­dat­ed over 500 home­less peo­ple.

Ya­coobali said for this year alone, five in­di­vid­u­als have suc­cess­ful­ly turned their lives around, find­ing em­ploy­ment and al­ter­na­tive hous­ing. 

The cen­tre op­er­ates with no as­sis­tance from any gov­ern­ment agency and Ya­coobali said do­na­tions from the pub­lic as well as a cadre of vol­un­teers do yeo­man ser­vice to as­sist the home­less.

“We have to save the shel­ter. We are at risk, and we are go­ing to lose half of the shel­ter if the rain con­tin­ues,” Ya­coobali warned.

He re­called that in late 2022, MP for San Fer­nan­do West and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi promised that mea­sures would be tak­en to ad­dress the wors­en­ing land­slide. How­ev­er, de­spite these as­sur­ances, no ac­tion has been tak­en.

Mean­while, Rudy Ramb­harat, a vol­un­teer project man­ag­er, al­so agreed ur­gent at­ten­tion was need­ed.

He called for spe­cialised equip­ment to al­le­vi­ate the pres­sure on the vul­ner­a­ble wall. 

“If we re­move the dirt (from be­low the hill), it will cause an avalanche and the en­tire hill could come down on­to the build­ing it­self,” Ramb­harat said.

He added: “We have to cre­ate a steel wall. To do so we need steel columns and steel sheets. We need to auger and then cre­ate a steel wall to hold back the sur­charge that is com­ing down against the wall. We will have to take down the roof sheet­ing as well. We need an ex­ca­va­tor and dump truck and al­so a crane to lift equip­ment. This will en­tail a lot of en­gi­neer­ing, equip­ment, re­lief work and man­pow­er and it needs to be done in a quick time,” Ramb­harat said.

Ramb­harat ap­pealed to en­gi­neer­ing com­pa­nies and con­trac­tors with the nec­es­sary equip­ment to as­sist in sav­ing the cen­tre.

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment said last year that there were 103 street dwellers in the San Fer­nan­do and Mara­bel­la dis­tricts, with 95 males and eight fe­males re­sid­ing in San Fer­nan­do. 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein said while the cen­tre was dear to his heart, the land­slide has to be ad­dressed by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

It was Ho­sein who put for­ward the idea of a shel­ter at King’s Wharf, hav­ing been deeply moved by the grow­ing home­less pop­u­la­tion dur­ing his tenure.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi but calls and mes­sages went unan­swered. 

Con­cerned cit­i­zens who wish to con­tribute to sav­ing the Cen­tre can con­tact Ya­coobali at 323-8402, Ami­rah at 468-6237, or do­nate to ac­count num­ber 110000003375264.