Derek Achong

Res­i­dents of a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ment com­plex at the cor­ner of Dun­can Street and low­er In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain clashed with po­lice and HDC of­fi­cials as they were be­ing evict­ed, yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 8 am, HDC of­fi­cials ac­com­pa­nied by heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers in tac­ti­cal gear went to the apart­ment com­plex and be­gan to re­move the res­i­dents’ be­long­ings. 

When a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the lo­ca­tion the res­i­dents were seen pack­ing their be­long­ings on­to flatbed trucks while still tak­ing the time to shout in­sults at HDC of­fi­cials who were in the process of re­mov­ing doors and win­dows from their apart­ments. 

Sev­er­al res­i­dents ad­mit­ted that they were pro­vid­ed with al­ter­na­tive hous­ing af­ter be­ing no­ti­fied of the HDC’s plans last month. 

How­ev­er, they claimed that they re­quest­ed more time to re­lo­cate as they dis­cov­ered that some of the al­ter­na­tive hous­ing they were of­fered was not im­me­di­ate­ly ready for oc­cu­pa­tion. 

Long-stand­ing HDC em­ploy­ee Michelle Lamaitire, who has been liv­ing in the apart­ment com­plex with her fam­i­ly for over 25 years, claimed that she was told by a se­nior of­fi­cial that she had un­til to­mor­row to move and was work­ing hard to meet the dead­line. 

“We are mov­ing will­ing­ly. We ain’t ask for noth­ing. I nev­er gave any prob­lems,” she said. 

HDC employee Michelle Lamaitire said she has been living in one of the apartments for the past 25 years.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

She claimed that she was de­layed in mov­ing in­to her new apart­ment as it had to be re­paint­ed and its leak­ing ceil­ing re­paired. 

“It’s poor peo­ple yuh deal­ing with. You have to give we the time to move,” one of Lamaitire’s rel­a­tives in­ter­ject­ed while he was in the process of pack­ing a box of his per­son­al items. 

One el­der­ly woman was seen re­mon­strat­ing with the po­lice of­fi­cers and HDC of­fi­cials, who she ac­cused of re­mov­ing a toi­let and flood­ing her apart­ment be­fore she and her fam­i­ly had a chance to re­move their fur­ni­ture and be­long­ings. 

“Just be­cause it’s poor peo­ple yuh can’t do we so. HDC too stink,” she said. 

One male res­i­dent, who had been liv­ing in the com­plex since he was three, claimed that he was beat­en by po­lice of­fi­cers when he op­posed them for al­leged­ly dam­ag­ing a ceil­ing fan. 

“I was the on­ly one try­ing to fight them...They rushed in and pushed me down,” he said. 

“The prob­lem was not mov­ing. It was get­ting time and mon­ey to move out every­thing.”

He claimed that his moth­er lived in one apart­ment with some of his sib­lings while he, his wife, his young daugh­ter, and one of his broth­ers lived with his grand­fa­ther in an­oth­er. 

He ad­mit­ted that his grand­fa­ther, who he cared for while he was bedrid­den, did not trans­fer the apart­ment to him be­fore she died. 

The man claimed that HDC of­fi­cials told him he would have to ap­ply for his own hous­ing and would not re­ceive al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion like his neigh­bours. 

He stat­ed that he would not have to move in with his moth­er, who was re­lo­cat­ed to an apart­ment in south Trinidad. 

The move to evict the res­i­dents came one day af­ter Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke marched in­to the HDC’s South Quay head­quar­ters on Fri­day and de­mand­ed to speak to an of­fi­cial about plans to re­lo­cate res­i­dents. 

For near­ly two hours, Duke was on 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.

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 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.

A HDC employee removes a window from one of the apartments on Duncan Street, Lower Independence Square, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Alexan­der: We will not tol­er­ate il­le­gal dis­rup­tions in the cap­i­tal

Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion in an in­ter­view on I95.5 FM, yes­ter­day morn­ing, act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Roger Alexan­der said that his of­fi­cers were able to quick­ly quell protest ac­tion by res­i­dents, which in­clud­ed the burn­ing of rub­bish. 

“This morn­ing when we ar­rived there were some per­sons who were try­ing to dis­rupt the po­lice op­er­a­tion, but that was quick­ly put down, and now the po­lice have it un­der con­trol. All is qui­et and reg­u­lar,” Alexan­der said. 

Not­ing that the res­i­dents were con­sult­ed be­fore the ac­tion was tak­en, Alexan­der warned that his of­fi­cers would not tol­er­ate il­le­gal dis­rup­tions in the cap­i­tal. 

“I told them (of­fi­cers) we are not to stand by and see per­sons con­duct them­selves in a par­tic­u­lar way and leave think­ing that all is well be­cause some things are passed on from one com­mu­ni­ty to an­oth­er de­pend­ing on the re­ac­tion of law en­force­ment,” he said.