Shal­iza Has­sanali

CEO of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) Dr Allen Sam­my es­ti­mates the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion in T&T to be 200,000 and grow­ing. Sam­my said in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by the LSA shows that there are 25,000 squat­ting fam­i­lies liv­ing on state lands with a fur­ther 25,000 oc­cu­py­ing pri­vate prop­er­ties, each with a house­hold of four mem­bers, bring­ing the to­tal squat­ting pop­u­la­tion to 200,000. "Our re­cent in­ves­ti­ga­tions show that there might be much more than the 200,000 fig­ure," Sam­my re­vealed on Thurs­day. The fig­ures were tak­en from 251 squat­ting sites which the LSA vis­it­ed over the years. How­ev­er, Sam­my said, with­in the last few months new sites were es­tab­lished, bring­ing the num­ber to a wor­ry­ing 300. Sam­my al­so dis­closed that 2,000 fam­i­lies who are deemed poor en­joy less than $1,000 a month, while 26,000 main­tain their fam­i­lies on salaries rang­ing from $1,000 to $3,000 every 30 days.

"I es­ti­mate that one sev­enth of the pop­u­la­tion is squat­ting." Un­der the Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure of 1998, the LSA was giv­en life to deal with squat­ters on state lands, pro­vide va­cant lots and es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ty coun­cils to de­vel­op skills on sites. Sam­my's rev­e­la­tion comes hot on the heels of a squat­ting sur­vey done by so­cial sci­en­tist Dr L Trevor Grant, which will be pub­lished in a book en­ti­tled "Liv­ing Dan­ger­ous­ly-Squat­ting in Trinidad and To­ba­go." The book, which will be avail­able on shelves next month, will re­veal the true sta­tis­tics. "There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300,000 il­le­gal squat­ters in the coun­try. At least 23 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion are squat­ters," Grant ex­plained. The fig­ure was ob­tained by Grant af­ter con­duct­ing a de­tailed sur­vey from 1996 to 2010, in 250 sites in T&T. The rea­sons for squat­ting, Grant said, were no mon­ey to buy land, as­tro­nom­i­cal rents, un­em­ploy­ment, no place to go, fam­i­ly prob­lems and the need for a place to live.

ABOVE: Re­cent­ly de­mol­ished squat­ter hous­es in War­den Road, Point Fortin.

Liv­ing dan­ger­ous­ly in T&T:

Drug, sex, crime, promis­cu­ity on the rise in squat­ting

Grant con­tends there is a link be­tween squat­ting and pover­ty. The two prob­lems are in­ter­twined, Grant said, con­tribut­ing to drugs, sex, crime and promis­cu­ity. "At least 79 per cent of the squat­ting sites are in­volved in crime, sex, rob­beries and drugs," he said. His da­ta al­so showed that 76 per cent of the squat­ters are un­em­ployed, while the re­main­ing 24 per cent work for min­i­mum wage. The sur­vey in­di­cat­ed that on­ly 72 per cent ob­tained pri­ma­ry school ed­u­ca­tion.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, Grant said, the sur­vey showed that 86 per cent of the squat­ters owned their homes, while 40 per cent rent­ed from peo­ple who owned shacks, with ten per cent hav­ing leas­es.

Grant stat­ed that the PNM's fail­ure to find so­lu­tions to the his­tor­i­cal prob­lem of squat­ting had left many cit­i­zens frus­trat­ed and dis­il­lu­sioned. "Many of the land grab­bers know that squat­ting is il­le­gal but they can­not do bet­ter." Since the many failed promis­es by the PNM to build 10,000 hous­es per year, Grant said find­ing 300,000 homes will be a dif­fi­cult task.

Govt needs 15 years to re­duce squat­ting

From 1995 to 2002, Sam­my­said, the then UNC Hous­ing min­is­ter, John Humprey sought to re­duce the squat­ting prob­lem by mak­ing loans avail­able to poor peo­ple who did not have homes, an ap­proach scrapped by the PNM up­on re­turn­ing to of­fice. "The PNM came up with a hous­ing thrust, promis­ing to build 100,000 hous­es over ten years, which al­so failed mis­er­ably," said Sam­my. For­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning in 2003 al­so promised to give squat­ters $25,000 grants to build hous­es in an at­tempt to avoid slums. That nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. In May 2006, then Hous­ing min­is­ter, Kei­th Row­ley stat­ed there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80,000 squat­ters in T&T, while ex Hous­ing min­is­ter, Emi­ly Gaynor Dick-Forde had ar­gued in June that squat­ting was mush­room­ing, with 72 il­le­gal struc­tures be­ing built every month.

This was af­ter throngs of squat­ters in­vad­ed state lands fol­low­ing the vic­to­ry of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. "It would take ten to 15 years to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce squat­ting. It can be done," Sam­my said op­ti­misti­cal­ly, not­ing that gov­ern­ment's squat­ting pro­grammes have not been able to keep up with the grow­ing hous­ing de­mand.

Va­cant lots pro­gramme com­ing

Sam­my said what the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to do is es­tab­lish a Va­cant Lots Pro­gramme to make pro­vi­sions for squat­ters. "We are in the process of re­vis­ing the Act with Humphrey." On Fri­day, Sam­my met with Humphrey and a le­gal team to chart a new way for­ward with the Act. Sam­my said they in­tend to re­vise the word "con­tain­ment" in the Act, where the LSA would be able to stop new squat­ters en­croach­ing on state lands, which he de­scribed as law­less­ness.

Pro­vid­ing an al­ter­na­tive

Ad­mit­ting that squat­ting is an ex­treme­ly wor­ry­ing con­cern, Sam­my said, "This prob­lem is re­al­ly big. "If you can't pro­vide an al­ter­na­tive for peo­ple, then how can you stop them?" Sam­my said LSA was faced with a num­ber of com­plex­i­ties in that squat­ters are not on­ly on gov­ern­ment lands, but lands that were vest­ed in state agen­cies such as Petrotrin, the Port Au­thor­i­ty, PTSC and the Min­istry of En­er­gy. The first thing the LSA needs to do, Sam­my said, is to re­duce ju­ris­dic­tion­al bot­tle­necks. This is to be done by an ad­min­is­tra­tional team look­ing specif­i­cal­ly at the is­sue of land which will be long term. "But in the in­ter­im, you can have an MOU or Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment with all the agen­cies up­on the lands which the squat­ters oc­cu­py."

The LSA is al­so look­ing at pro­vid­ing new sites which will have roads, wa­ter, drains and elec­tric­i­ty. "What we need to do in that pro­gramme is make lands avail­able to peo­ple as was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived by Humphrey, where peo­ple can pay $25,000 for a small par­cel of land over 30 years and let the peo­ple build what they want." Once this is es­tab­lished, Sam­my said, the area would de­vel­op over time with the open­ing of busi­ness­es. "This will al­so make the peo­ple be­come self suf­fi­cient," Sam­my point­ed out.

Grant's sur­vey

Squat­ting pop­u­la­tion:

African-58 per cent

In­di­an-36 per cent

Mixed-6 per cent.

Age of squat­ters:

30 plus- 54 per cent

16-29 yrs-46 per cent

Ages of chil­dren:

1-9-45 per cent

10-19-35 per cent

Mar­i­tal sta­tus:

Sin­gle, com­mon-law, di­vorced and mar­ried-78 per cent.

Length of squat­ting:

1-19 years-60 per cent

20- 30 plus-40 per cent

1-9 years-36 per cent

Length of squat­ting range:

1-40 years

Num­ber of chil­dren be­long­ing to squat­ters:

1-5-66 per cent

6-9-14 per cent

Feel­ing of safe­ty liv­ing on state lands:

64 per cent felt safe

36 per cent un­safe

21 per cent no prob­lems

Num­ber of peo­ple re­sid­ing in squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties:

1-5 78 per cent

6-11 24 per cent.

Some squat­ting sites

Diego Mar­tin:

Bagatelle South, Fac­to­ry Road Wa­ter­fall, Up­per Mecer Road, Bagatelle Cen­tral inc Sa­van­nah Ter­race Nos 1&2 Up­per Bagatelle & Pat­na

Care­nage:

Scor­pi­on Vil­lage, Sea View Hill, L'Anse M'tan

Port of Spain and en­vi­rons:

Mick­ie Lands, Up­per Bel­mont Val­ley Road in­to La­dy Young Road, Port-of-Spain South, Clifton Cir­cu­lar Road, South Clifton Lane, East Dry Riv­er, St Paul Street, Rose Hill, South Lodge Place, South St Joseph Road, South Her­man Scott Street, South Irv­ing Lane, East Dry Riv­er Al­fred Richards Street, South An­nisette Street, South

Clifton Street, South Joropo Dri­ve, Up­per Sam Boucoud, St Ann's, Dun­don­ald Hill, Beetham Es­tate Phase IV

Laven­tille, San Juan, Barataria:

Up­per Blanch Street, Bourg Mu­la­tresse, Be­tween Car­risal Road and Damien Bay, Mara­cas Bay Area, Mt Hope Place, Maitagua, So­gren Trace Laven­tille, Mal­ick, Barataria, Shende Street Ext., San Juan, El So­cor­ro, South, Pic­ton Quar­ry

Champs Fleurs, St Joseph, Curepe, St Au­gus­tine:

Up­per Mendez Dri­ve, Champs Fleurs, William Street, Up­per Mt d'or be­hind the Sa­van­nah, Farm Road, St Joseph, Quar­ry Dri­ve, Mt Hope- back of Govt. Hous­ing Project, North Eliz­a­beth Gar­dens, St Joseph, North of Bam­boo Dri­ve, Champs Fleurs, North of Hut­ton Street, St Joseph, Bam­boo Set­tle­ment 3, Val­sayn, South Kha­lay Vil­lage, St Au­gus­tine, Dook­iesingh Street, Spring Vil­lage via Free­man Road, South of Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, Pasea Road Ext Tu­na­puna

Arou­ca, Five Rivers, Ari­ma:

South of Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, Mau­si­ca Road, Tacarigua, Bon Air North, Arou­ca North, Five Rivers Arou­ca North, Print­eryville, South Race Course, South Pey­tonville, Sama­roo Vil­lage off O'meara Road, Old Mal­abar & In­di­an, Ma­tu­ri­ta Tri­an­gle, Ari­ma, Zone 8, Heights of Aripo, Heights of Gu­napo, La Re­traite Dump Road, Cal­vary Hill, Ari­ma, Paria Bras­so Seco, Morne La­corix,

Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande:

KP Lands, Alexan­der Trace, Va­len­cia, Va­len­cia Long Stretch (north and south), Sci­en­tif­ic Area, Farm­lands Tu­rure, Blake Av­enue, Guaico, Pic­ton Road Ext San­gre Grande, Ojoe Road Hos­pi­tal Land, Sel­l­i­er Road, Gra­ham Trace, Sa­hodeen Trace, Ve­ga De Oropouche, To­co Main Road Inc'l Mo­ra Trace, Matu­ra Vil­lage, Quash Trace off Fos­ter Road

South, Cen­tral:

Carlsen Field West, San Fran­cis­co Land, Ca­roni Cen­tral,

Pereau Hill La Phillip­ine Es­tate, Cou­va, Cal­i­for­nia Vil­lage,

Spring­vale Sookoo Trace St Johns Road, Clax­ton Bay, Lawrence Wong Road, Long­denville, Kel­ly Vil­lage, Mac Lean Trace Las Lo­mas No 1, La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni, Map­per­pire Road, Williamsville, Pi­paro Set­tle­ment & Din­di­al Set­tle­ment, Pi­paro, Coros­al Road, White­land, Squat­ter­ville, Macaulay, Are­na Road, Freeport, Bho­lai Trace, Cara­pichaima, Brazil Vil­lage, San Rafael, Mil­ton Vil­lage, Cou­va, North of Car­li Bay Road, Bayshore Mara­bel­la, Har­mo­ny Hall Es­tate, Near La­dy Ho­choy Home, Gas­par­il­lo