Geisha Kow­lessar

?The Cleaver Heights Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, which has been shroud­ed in po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, is again back in the spot­light. Claims of ram­pant crime, lack of street lights and tele­phone land lines, shod­dy in­fra­struc­ture and poor wa­ter sup­ply have left res­i­dents frus­trat­ed and irate. So much so, that they have vowed to block all the roads lead­ing in and out of the com­mu­ni­ty un­til mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed. De­scrib­ing the area as a vir­tu­al hell hole, most home-dwellers said they were pre­pared to pack their bags and flee. An an­gry Car­o­line Ruiz, who owns a town­house at Phase One, claimed at least 25 homes were bro­ken in­to this month. "In some in­stances, lou­vres were re­moved or the bur­glar-proof­ing cut and thieves stole what­ev­er they could put their hands on," Ruiz said. On oth­er oc­ca­sions she said, homes were cleaned out en­tire­ly.

Ruiz said in one in­stance, in­trud­ers held down a woman on her bed. Her screams, how­ev­er, alert­ed neigh­bours who rushed to her res­cue. The crime scourge, res­i­dents said, be­gan when they ini­tial­ly moved in about two years ago. It has grad­u­at­ed from pet­ty thefts to brazen day­light at­tacks. "We got the hous­es with­out any bur­glar-proof­ing, so thieves would take out one or two lou­vers and take what­ev­er they want at first. "We got wood­en door frames which were far from se­cure, so thieves would put their hands through the lou­vers and open the doors to gain en­try," Ruiz said. Ruiz, a sin­gle par­ent, said she was forced to shell out close to $40,000 to se­cure just the down­stairs por­tion of her home. "We got ab­solute­ly noth­ing with the house, so it is very cost­ly to se­cure it. "At one time, sin­gle women were be­ing tar­get­ed, but now is a free-for-all," Ruiz added.

Aban­doned homes

The Cleaver Heights Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment com­pris­es eight phas­es, each of which con­tains 100 homes. Some of the phas­es, res­i­dents said, were yet to be com­plet­ed. And among those which were fin­ished, keys have not been dis­trib­uted. When The Guardian vis­it­ed the area, sev­er­al homes at Phase Two were van­dalised. Toi­let bowls were ripped out, lou­vres miss­ing and doors stolen. Cig­a­rette butts and hu­man ex­cre­ment lit­tered some of the con­crete floors. Tak­ing mat­ters in­to their hands, res­i­dents have formed a cri­sis man­age­ment team, con­duct­ing pa­trols through­out the com­mu­ni­ty. "I am sup­posed to be hap­py to be own­ing my home, but I am not, so it's bet­ter I go back to rent­ing," Ruiz vent­ed. Shar­ing her sen­ti­ments was Der­rick Ali, whose home was bur­glarised in May. Ali said when he got up one morn­ing he dis­cov­ered a side door forced open and all the items from the space­saver miss­ing.

Un­ful­filled promis­es

Maria Bo­neo, an­oth­er res­i­dent from Phase One dis­played a file con­tain­ing copies of sev­er­al let­ters sent to the var­i­ous au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC). To date, she claimed, res­i­dents have been giv­en un­ful­filled promis­es, in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion a perime­ter wall. Ac­cord­ing to Bo­neo, pleas were al­so made to Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Lopinot/Bon Air West Neil Parsan­lal. She said two Fri­days ago, dur­ing the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, there was a pow­er out­age in the de­vel­op­ment. A car be­long­ing to a mem­ber of the cri­sis team was stolen with­in min­utes. Say­ing she was think­ing of re­lo­cat­ing, Bo­neo, a moth­er of a six-year-old girl, de­scribed life at Cleaver Heights as un­der siege.

Min­is­ter's re­sponse

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal as­sured that mea­sures were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to rec­ti­fy the prob­lems. He said he met with three res­i­dents at his con­stituen­cy's of­fice on Oc­to­ber 15, when con­cerns were aired. Parsan­lal, how­ev­er, ex­pressed sur­prise by the protest ac­tion tak­en by res­i­dents last week. "I was very sur­prised that such a short space had lapsed and protest ac­tion was tak­ing place, be­cause we agreed on a cer­tain course of ac­tion." He em­pha­sised, how­ev­er, that con­tact has made with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to bring some lev­el of com­fort to res­i­dents.