RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Overnight rains dam­aged the pos­ses­sions of four fam­i­lies evict­ed by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) in San Fer­nan­do last Thurs­day.

Among those left home­less are Faith No­ray, 20, an ex­pec­tant moth­er, and her boyfriend Bran­don Brown, 29. Their first child to­geth­er is due next week.

On Fri­day, the cou­ple moved back in­to their home on Steve Achai­ba Street, San Fer­nan­do, as they had nowhere else to go.

Brown’s moth­er, Par­batie Ra­goo­nanan said she al­so moved back in and was sick with wor­ry as all her valu­ables got wet in the rain.

“My mat­tress soaked, all my small ap­pli­ances, my mi­crowave, all my clothes, my gro­ceries, every­thing got wet,” she cried.

Ra­goo­nanan’s broth­er, Nar­ine Ram­cha­ran, said he was con­fused as to why the HDC evict­ed them as some of them had been liv­ing on the lands since 1978 and had leas­es, while oth­ers had been liv­ing there since 2004.

An af­fi­davit pro­vid­ed by Gan­ga­daye Ra­goo­nanan in­di­cat­ed that she had been liv­ing on the par­cel of land since 1978.

Brown pro­vid­ed an evic­tion no­tice from the HDC dat­ed Ju­ly 22 which stat­ed that he was re­quired to va­cate a par­cel of land at Rush­worth Street West, San Fer­nan­do, which he had been il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing with­out the con­sent and au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the HDC.

How­ev­er, Brown said he did not live on HDC lands at Rush­worth Street West and was puz­zled about why he re­ceived such a no­tice. He al­so said in­suf­fi­cient time was giv­en, as his fam­i­ly couldn’t re­lo­cate on such short no­tice.

“We are not tak­ing this light­ly. Right now, my preg­nant girl­friend is feel­ing sick with all this stress,” he said.

In re­sponse to ques­tions about the rea­sons for the evic­tions on Steve Achai­ba Street when it does not own the homes or the lands oc­cu­pied by the res­i­dents, the HDC said the mat­ter is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The HDC is aware of the con­cerns raised by res­i­dents who have been evict­ed along Steve Achai­ba Street in San Fer­nan­do. The HDC un­der­stands that the res­i­dents have since re-en­tered the premis­es and tak­en up res­i­dence in their orig­i­nal hous­es. The HDC will in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter to de­ter­mine the cause of the evic­tions,” the Au­thor­i­ty said.