Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Three weeks af­ter a fire rav­aged their Rook­ery Nook, Mar­aval home and claimed the lives of three of their loved ones, the re­main­ing mem­bers of the Burke fam­i­ly have a new place to call home.

Janelle Ro­driguez was hand­ed the keys to a Vieux Fort Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ment in St James yes­ter­day morn­ing.

“I want to say thanks for the great sup­port. Thanks for the prayers. I al­so want to thank Don­na Cox, Kei­th Scot­land and Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for com­ing out to­day and bless­ing us with this won­der­ful home—some­where to rest our heads, so that we can go on with our fam­i­ly,” Ro­driguez said at her new home.

She was ac­com­pa­nied by her two daugh­ters, who es­caped the burn­ing build­ing which trapped their oth­er sib­lings.

While Ro­driguez ex­pressed her grat­i­tude to the Gov­ern­ment for their sup­port, she said she was con­cerned about how do­na­tions to the Burke fam­i­ly’s web­site were be­ing han­dled by some­one known to her fam­i­ly.

She claimed the ad­min­is­tra­tor of the do­na­tion dri­ve was mak­ing strange de­ci­sions and she want­ed an­swers.

“We are still wait­ing for the funds that came in­to this ac­count. We haven’t re­ceived any­thing. We don’t know what is tak­ing place. As far as I know, the fund was rude­ly and will­ing­ly tak­en over,” Ro­driguez claimed.

“I will like some sort of ac­tion to be tak­en in­to this to know ex­act­ly what is go­ing on be­cause they are do­ing as they please with this and the chil­dren are in need of this.”

Minister of Housing and Urban Development Pennelope Beckles, right, and Minister of Social Development and Family Services Donna Cox present Janelle Rodriquez keys to her HDC apartment at Vieux Fort, St James, yesterday. Also in picture are Rodriquez’s children Jeniceia, 15 and Zaria Burke, 13, who survived the fire that destroyed their Maraval home.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

As part of the emer­gency hous­ing arrange­ment, the fam­i­ly’s first six months of rent are al­ready paid for.

“The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment is pay­ing the first three months and the Min­istry of Hous­ing, the sec­ond three. So, we give them a six months cush­ion to be able to catch them­selves,” said Hous­ing Min­is­ter Beck­les.

Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, how­ev­er, Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land pledged that he would cov­er an­oth­er three months of rent, tak­ing the to­tal cov­er­age to nine months.

Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox said her min­istry will con­tin­ue to as­sist the fam­i­ly.

She as­sured re­porters that the new apart­ment is safe and com­fort­able.

“I re­ceived a lot of calls from busi­ness per­sons, mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, who were very con­cerned about this sit­u­a­tion about the fire and I must say that a lot of them have stepped for­ward,” Cox said.

“We will do an as­sess­ment and Miss Ro­driguez will be able to ap­ply for grants for fur­ni­ture im­me­di­ate­ly - im­me­di­ate ap­pli­ances for this apart­ment. We al­so, through our Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, would be pro­vid­ing coun­selling for her and her en­tire fam­i­ly.”

On the morn­ing of Ju­ly 26, 2021, a fire gut­ted the Burke fam­i­ly home in Mar­aval. Three fam­i­ly mem­bers died—Ezekiel Burke, 17, Faith Burke, 6, and Kay­den Burke, 3.

They were laid to rest at a fu­ner­al ser­vice in Mor­vant on Au­gust 6.