Ke­jan Haynes

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke marched in­to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day morn­ing, de­mand­ing to speak to an of­fi­cial about plans to re­lo­cate res­i­dents of a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment on low­er In­de­pen­dence Square.

The area in east Port-of-Spain is ear­marked for de­mo­li­tion as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s East Port-of-Spain re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion project.

For near­ly two hours, Duke stood in the HDC’s main floor de­mand­ing in­for­ma­tion on the HDC’s re­lo­ca­tion pol­i­cy, much to the cha­grin of mem­bers of the pub­lic who were locked out­side while po­lice en­tered the build­ing to mon­i­tor his ac­tions.

His ar­gu­ment was that the res­i­dents were be­ing se­vere­ly dis­placed by the HDC’s ac­tion.

Colleen Men­doza, an af­fect­ed res­i­dent, ac­knowl­edged the HDC came to them about two or three years ago to ex­plain the process of re­lo­ca­tion and re­fur­bish­ment of the area.

“With­in a month they tell us move, and they have nowhere to put us,” Men­doza said.

“They want to put us Princes Town, Tabaquite, San­gre Grande, all over.

Duke asked for the “tem­plate” the HDC used to re­lo­cate peo­ple. He said he was ask­ing for the same sys­tem used when peo­ple were re­lo­cat­ed from oth­er plan­nings in Laven­tille. He claimed peo­ple who were pre­vi­ous­ly pay­ing $150 in rent are now be­ing asked to pay $1,500 in their new lo­ca­tions.

“It has not been sort­ed out. This woman here, un­der the bul­ly­ing, ac­cept­ed the move,” Duke said.

“She had two apart­ments for a sev­en-per­son fam­i­ly. Now, they put her in an apart­ment with three rooms.”

The woman he re­ferred to com­plained that her new lo­ca­tion was al­so not ready to move in­to and of poor plumb­ing and oth­er de­fects.

Duke called on the HDC to pro­vide coun­selling for the fam­i­lies and for the HDC to pay a re­lo­ca­tion al­lowance of $3,000.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who walked through a side en­trance at the time Duke was still in the build­ing, dis­missed Duke’s ac­tions as noth­ing more than a grab for at­ten­tion.

“Mr Duke is mak­ing a mock­ery of him­self,” Robin­son Reg­is said.

“The re­lo­ca­tion is part of what we’re do­ing for the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of Port-of-Spain. The res­i­dents are well aware and they are be­ing de­cant­ed to oth­er ar­eas.”

She said the HDC is not do­ing any­thing the res­i­dents of the area were not aware of and in agree­ment with. She said the HDC and the Min­istry have been talk­ing to the res­i­dents with the promise of bet­ter hous­ing for them. She said homes have been al­lo­cat­ed for the res­i­dents close to Port-of-Spain, but ac­knowl­edged some of the res­i­dents would be moved fur­ther away.

“Wher­ev­er we have units avail­able, we’ve been de­cant­i­ng peo­ple there. So, we have not been do­ing any­thing the law­ful res­i­dents are not ful­ly aware of,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

In a re­sponse yes­ter­day, the HDC said it had iden­ti­fied al­ter­na­tive hous­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion for the res­i­dents of each apart­ment that will be de­mol­ished.

“In­deed, res­i­dents were of­fered, and some ac­cept­ed, the op­tion to pur­chase an HDC hous­ing unit. Oth­ers elect­ed to en­ter in­to a new land­lord and ten­ant re­la­tion­ship,” HDC said.

It said all but five res­i­dents have al­ready re­lo­cat­ed to an­oth­er HDC hous­ing unit but some peo­ple still re­fused to leave.

“How­ev­er, re­gret­tably, per­sons have en­tered in­to il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of those units that were va­cat­ed and they have re­fused to leave the units, de­spite re­peat­ed at­tempts by the HDC to have them so do.”

The HDC said it will act re­spon­si­bly and with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law to ob­tain pos­ses­sion of the il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­pied units.