RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) has is­sued a warn­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic about the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of its hous­ing units, stat­ing that in­di­vid­u­als have been break­ing and en­ter­ing in­to un­oc­cu­pied apart­ments at sev­er­al sites across the coun­try.

In a me­dia re­lease, the HDC said it is “aware of re­cent re­ports and in­ci­dents in­volv­ing in­di­vid­u­als break­ing and en­ter­ing in­to un­oc­cu­pied apart­ments with­in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties in­clud­ing Cy­press Hills, San Fer­nan­do; Green­vale, La Hor­quet­ta and al­leged claims in Eden Gar­dens, Freeport.”

The HDC re­mind­ed the pub­lic that “break­ing and en­ter­ing is a crim­i­nal of­fence pun­ish­able by law.”

Re­fer­ring to Sec­tion 5B of the Tres­pass (Amend­ment) Act, the re­lease stat­ed, “Any per­son who, be­ing un­law­ful­ly in or up­on any premis­es, main­tains or at­tempts to main­tain his pos­ses­sion or oc­cu­pa­tion there­of and does so by force or in a man­ner that would ren­der the use of force as the on­ly rea­son­able or prac­ti­ca­ble means of re­cov­er­ing law­ful pos­ses­sion of the premis­es, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of one hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for fif­teen years.”

In re­sponse to con­firmed re­ports of il­le­gal oc­cu­pan­cy at its Cy­press Hills, San Fer­nan­do, de­vel­op­ment, the HDC said it has al­ready dis­patched se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel where op­er­a­tions are cur­rent­ly un­der­way to re­move all il­le­gal oc­cu­pants.”

It added that “these ef­forts are be­ing sup­port­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to en­sure the safe­ty of law-abid­ing res­i­dents and staff dur­ing the ex­er­cise.”

The HDC al­so con­firmed that, “on Tues­day, April 22, 2025, sev­er­al per­sons were ar­rest­ed in Green­vale, La Hor­quet­ta, for un­law­ful­ly en­ter­ing and oc­cu­py­ing HDC apart­ments. These in­di­vid­u­als have been for­mal­ly charged and are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Mag­is­trate in ac­cor­dance with the Tres­pass Act of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

With re­gard to Eden Gar­dens, Freeport, the HDC said it will be “con­duct­ing a site vis­it to the area, ac­com­pa­nied by the TTPS,” and warned that, “any in­di­vid­ual found to be oc­cu­py­ing units or lands il­le­gal­ly will face im­me­di­ate re­moval with po­ten­tial le­gal ac­tion.”

The HDC said op­er­a­tions to re­move il­le­gal oc­cu­pants will con­tin­ue over the week­end in mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions.