Shal­iza Has­sanali

Mosi Haynes is a mere step away from be­com­ing a street dweller. With the de­mo­li­tion of his Palmiste Street, Bel­mont, home last No­vem­ber, Haynes, 32, has been run­ning from pil­lar to post in search of shel­ter. Haynes' life was turned up­side down when the house he had rent­ed for sev­er­al years was flat­tened on No­vem­ber 14, 2009, by a man claim­ing to be the own­er of the prop­er­ty. In 1989 Haynes and his grand­moth­er Ri­ta Haynes be­gan rent­ing the two-bed­room wood­en house from James Greenidge at $250 a month.

How­ev­er, in 1994 fol­low­ing Greenidge's death, Haynes stopped pay­ing rent. "That's when all hell broke loose as peo­ple who were not con­nect­ed to James start­ed claim­ing to be the own­er of the house with­out show­ing as much as a deed," Haynes said. Then on No­vem­ber 14, 2009, Haynes said a man with a sledge­ham­mer crew showed up in front of his gate de­mand­ing that he leave the prime re­al es­tate prop­er­ty, which is just a stone's throw from the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. "They told me that I was tres­pass­ing on the land," Haynes re­called. In the blink of an eye, Haynes said his be­long­ings were thrown out.

Re­al­is­ing that some­thing was rad­i­cal­ly wrong, Haynes rushed over to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion for as­sis­tance on­ly to be told that they could not in­ter­vene. "By the time I got back the men had dis­persed." Three days lat­er on No­vem­ber 17, the man pur­port­ing to be own­er re­turned with armed po­lice of­fi­cers and a de­mo­li­tion crew, de­mand­ing that Haynes leave forth­with. "They showed no doc­u­ment of any kind." Armed with pow­er saws and sledge­ham­mers, Haynes said the men start­ed rip­ping the house apart, de­stroy­ing every­thing in­side, in­clud­ing his grand­moth­er's an­tique fur­ni­ture.

Haynes es­ti­mat­ed the dam­ages to be close to $50,000. "I start­ed to cry know­ing that every­thing I had worked hard for was ru­ined in a mat­ter of min­utes." Haynes claimed he was al­so phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed sev­er­al times and man­han­dled by the po­lice when he tried to take pho­tographs of the de­mo­li­tion. To com­pound mat­ters, Haynes said the Bel­mont po­lice re­fused to get in­volved, say­ing it was a pri­vate mat­ter.

Sleep­ing on the cold floor

With no one to turn to for help, Haynes re­turned to the de­mol­ished house, where he slept among the ru­ins for sev­er­al days. "When I re­alised that it was wa­ter more than flour I went to live with a friend in Bel­mont." But no soon­er had Haynes set­tled in, he had to move out. "My friend had to take in his girl­friend af­ter she got preg­nant. They need­ed their pri­va­cy." Haynes was even­tu­al­ly res­cued by an­oth­er friend, who has since put up his Bel­mont home for sale.

"The on­ly avail­able place I had was the cold ground, which is where I sleep. I know time is run­ning out for me. I am one step away from be­com­ing a Port-of-Spain street dweller. A va­grant. This is what I have been re­duced to. A no­body." Un­able to cope with the mount­ing pres­sures, Haynes said that sev­er­al times he want­ed to com­mit sui­cide. "This is the on­ly way out as far as I can see." Haynes said he ap­proached Le­gal Aid on­ly to be told that in or­der to get help, his salary must not ex­ceed $700 a month. Haynes col­lects $2,000 a month as a porter.

Faced with more prob­lems than he could bear, Haynes ap­proached one at­tor­ney, a se­nior coun­sel, who told him that he had a good case. "The lawyer wants $30,000 up front to fight my case and if I win an­oth­er $30,000. So I am too poor for a lawyer and too rich for Le­gal Aid." Haynes said the mon­ey he makes was not enough to pay a rent and live from day to day. "My hands are tied. I am feel­ing as if the world is against me."