Da­reece Po­lice

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has pledged ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion at the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing Cana­da Hous­ing de­vel­op­ment in Mar­cano Quar­ry Lands, Laven­tille, days af­ter res­i­dents pub­licly de­scribed liv­ing in de­cay­ing build­ings they said have been ne­glect­ed for years.

The com­mit­ment came af­ter Guardian Me­dia’s Be­hind Gang Cul­ture: The Laven­tille Sto­ry ex­am­ined the hu­man cost of gang vi­o­lence, the con­di­tions res­i­dents be­lieve con­tribute to gang re­cruit­ment and the chal­lenges of es­cap­ing crim­i­nal life.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der vis­it­ed the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, tour­ing the com­pound along­side en­gi­neers and of­fi­cials from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) af­ter res­i­dents high­light­ed col­lapsed roofs, aban­doned apart­ments, mould, bul­let-rid­dled walls and over­all de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions.

For many res­i­dents, it was the first time in years they felt some­one in au­thor­i­ty had lis­tened to their con­cerns.

“I have 71 (years) and I liv­ing here long time. And I try to move (from) here so long. HDC make me write many let­ters, what no­body nev­er even wrote in the past,” one el­der­ly res­i­dent told the min­is­ter.

Alexan­der replied: “We here now and we gonna fix it.”

Just two days ear­li­er, an­oth­er res­i­dent summed up the frus­tra­tion felt by many in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“They leave us like stray dogs—who eat, eat. Who fight, fight. Who die, die. Dah is how it is.”

The min­is­ter de­scribed the con­di­tions as un­ac­cept­able and or­dered an im­me­di­ate en­gi­neer­ing as­sess­ment to de­ter­mine whether the build­ings can be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed or re­quire de­mo­li­tion.

He ac­knowl­edged that some res­i­dents may need tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion while the as­sess­ments are car­ried out.

“We’re ob­vi­ous­ly go­ing to have to do some kind of emer­gency re­lo­ca­tion for them, be­cause they can’t con­tin­ue to live in this. We have to turn off the wa­ter sup­ply to the build­ing so that the sewage and that sort of stuff could stop, and they will do a more de­tailed as­sess­ment to let us know if there’s any sal­vage in this build­ing.”

He added that as­sis­tance would al­so be ex­tend­ed to oc­cu­pants with­out for­mal ten­an­cy agree­ments.

“We’ll take care of them, too. I mean, all cit­i­zens have to be tak­en care of. The Prime Min­is­ter told us leave no­body be­hind. So every­body’s sit­u­a­tion, they have some peo­ple who are in des­per­ate need and we have to find a way to get them in­to the sit­u­a­tion as well. No, we’re not sup­port­ing squat­ting, but this is not squat­ting. This is hang­ing on, this is shel­ter.”

De­spite the Gov­ern­ment’s as­sur­ances, res­i­dents re­mained cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic, point­ing to years of un­ful­filled promis­es.

“About five per cent. Yeah. Ah doh throw meh hopes up too high be­cause we’ve been here al­ready. Yeah, we’ve been here al­ready, so we hop­ing we could see fur­ther steps be­cause ah just ask the min­is­ter if we could at least get them to cut the yard.

“So if we see that hap­pen­ing with­in the next cou­ple ah days or weeks or what­so­ev­er, we could say well, ‘Yeah, at least they re­mem­ber we and some­thing is be­ing done’. If not, we know, well, we just as the grass in the yard here. No­body ent care about we,” res­i­dent Bjorn said.

But res­i­dents in Laven­tille say hous­ing alone will not solve the wider prob­lems af­fect­ing com­mu­ni­ties like Mar­cano Quar­ry Lands.

Guardian Me­dia has sought re­spons­es from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit, Port of Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land and Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle as calls con­tin­ue for sus­tained in­vest­ment in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by crime, pover­ty and ne­glect.

For many in Laven­tille, the is­sue ex­tends be­yond de­te­ri­o­rat­ing build­ings to the long-term im­pact of gang vi­o­lence.

“Gang life is pub­li­cised in such a glam­orous way be­cause what peo­ple see is they see the cars, they see the mon­ey, they see the gold, they see the fast life and it looks good. It looks at­trac­tive. But what they don’t see is what we see—the bul­let holes, the sleep­less nights, the miss­ing par­ents, the blood­shed,” said Sha­heena Thomas-King.

Her moth­er, Pa­tri­cia Bow­man, re­called the dai­ly re­al­i­ty dur­ing years of con­flict.

“And you put your bed on the ground.”

“Yeah, sleep­ing on the ground. At the be­gin­ning of the gang war,” she said.

“We had to dis­man­tle we bed and sleep on the ground. If night­fall come and yuh out­side yuh had­da stay out­side. Yuh can’t come home. And we live through that gang war for like five-six years,” Thomas-King added.

While res­i­dents wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse, many said the true mea­sure of suc­cess would not be the promis­es made dur­ing the min­is­ter’s vis­it, but whether tan­gi­ble im­prove­ments fi­nal­ly reach a com­mu­ni­ty that has spent years wait­ing to be re­mem­bered.