Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Robert Cum­mings was a hap­py man yes­ter­day when he was pre­sent­ed with a Gov­ern­ment grant.

Cum­mings and his wife Ma­ha­daye Goo­bar­dan had made a ceme­tery their home for sev­en weeks af­ter they were evict­ed from a house. The cou­ple lived each night in fear and were ex­posed to the el­e­ments and dan­gers that lurked around the pub­lic ceme­tery on Sa­hadeen Trace, San­gre Grande. Their case was high­light­ed on CNC3 on Ju­ly 7 and im­me­di­ate­ly a Good Samar­i­tan from Va­len­cia of­fered the cou­ple a place to live. They have been liv­ing at the place since then and will soon be re­lo­cat­ed with as­sis­tance from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC).

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, was dou­ble joy for Cum­mings as he cel­e­brat­ed his 59th birth­day. Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who was ap­prised of the cou­ple's sit­u­a­tion, said his min­istry was "hap­py to pick up the case" and pre­sent­ed Cum­mings with a $550 food card un­der the Con­di­tion­al Cash Trans­fer Pro­gramme.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the cou­ple would re­ceive a month­ly dis­abil­i­ty grant of $1,100, start­ing next month. He said: "We will be­gin to dis­trib­ute to those who are in dire need sim­i­lar food cards that we came across in 'di­rect im­pact' in one-and-a-half weeks' time." Ra­mad­hars­ingh was speak­ing at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al So­cial Ser­vices build­ing, Fos­ter Road.

The min­is­ter urged Cum­mings "to tell oth­er peo­ple about the pro­gramme if there are oth­er poor peo­ple that need help out there." Asked how he felt about re­ceiv­ing the as­sis­tance, Cum­mings said: "I am very, very hap­py. "We were asked to live in a home and af­ter a month we were asked to leave. We had no mon­ey and nowhere to go and we were liv­ing in the for­est get­ting wet in the rain," he added. He said he and Goo­bar­dan, 55, sub­se­quent­ly moved to the ceme­tery and then help ar­rived.