Con­sid­ered a hotspot and half of a swing seat, La Hor­quet­ta is a mi­cro­cosm of the main is­sues plagu­ing the coun­try - crime and po­lar­is­ing pol­i­tics.

Fos­ter Cum­mings was elect­ed as MP for the con­stituen­cy in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, edg­ing out the UNC’s Jear­lean John.

Start­ing his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer in 2008, the 51-year-old Cou­va na­tive moved from Tem­po­rary Sen­a­tor to be­come Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, as well as the PNM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary. He is now con­sid­ered one of the front run­ners to re­place Dr Kei­th Row­ley as par­ty leader when the Prime Min­is­ter re­tires. But La Hor­quet­ta con­stituents have mixed views about that pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“I see he is putting down some work these days. He is help­ing some peo­ple sort out their house and that kind of thing,” a Jacaran­da res­i­dent said.

“I ain’t see him do­ing noth­ing here. You are sup­posed to give the youths work. This par­ti­san thing, stop it.

“In­side of here have a lot of good boys, but you are hir­ing on­ly 10 to 12 of them all the time, and giv­ing them Cepep work,” a re­tired Phase I res­i­dent com­plained.

James, an­oth­er Phase I res­i­dent, be­lieved while Cum­mings was do­ing well, he lacked the nec­es­sary ex­pe­ri­ence to be the PNM’s next po­lit­i­cal leader.

“I want Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. I’m not say­ing Fos­ter is not good, but he’s still young in pol­i­tics,” James said.

Frenchie, the founder of the La Hor­quet­ta PNM Sup­port Group, said the MP is do­ing al­right but is too timid to be­come par­ty leader.

“Fos­ter is do­ing a lot, but he has to watch how he is mov­ing with cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als be­cause there are those who feel they are get­ting left out. They feel like he’s favour­ing cer­tain phas­es. Peo­ple feel like he’s favour­ing Phase II,” the foot­ball coach said.

La Hor­quet­ta res­i­dents were even less open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young lead­ing the par­ty.

“Them fel­las are a bunch of jok­ers. They have to go. When you watch how many times he re­cused him­self from cer­tain things,” Frenchie added.

“Stu­art doesn’t have the coun­try’s re­spect. He doesn’t have the ground vote. I could tell you that Fos­ter has a stronger chance to lead the par­ty.

“Youth out­reach is Fos­ter’s strength. Young peo­ple are the peo­ple who are go­ing to cross the thresh­old and be­come vot­ers. He is the one who is in­volv­ing them, reach­ing out to them and show­ing them sup­port through pro­grammes”, Michael, a res­i­dent in his late 30s added.

Stig­ma of crime

But while some may be look­ing at Cum­mings as the next pos­si­ble leader of the PNM. His con­stituents have oth­er is­sues they want him to treat with, first.

The North­ern Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice - cov­er­ing St Joseph, Ari­ma, Arou­ca, La Hor­quet­ta, Mal­abar, Mal­oney, Mara­cas/St Joseph, Pi­ar­co, Cu­mu­to and Tu­na­puna - is con­sid­ered the gun vi­o­lence cap­i­tal of the coun­try.

There were 1,098 homi­cides in the di­vi­sion be­tween Jan­u­ary 2014 and Sep­tem­ber 2023.

In 2023, nine homi­cide re­ports were made to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion. And as re­cent­ly as Feb­ru­ary, 37-year-old Nekero ‘Ounce’ Si­fontes was shot dead near Vic­tor Bruce Av­enue.

“I have been liv­ing here for 39 years. It’s the same thing over and over. When the old­er heads die out, the younger ones come with the same at­ti­tude. The stig­ma af­fects peo­ple look­ing for jobs. If I am sell­ing some­thing on Face­book, I will say I am from Ari­ma. I wouldn’t say I am from La Hor­quet­ta. And if cus­tomers are com­ing by me, I will use the po­lice sta­tion, so they will feel com­fort­able.

“Once or twice a month, you might hear a shoot­ing…It was al­ways so, but things came and changed up with the gangs - with the num­ber­ing of the gangs - six, sev­en,” 40-year-old res­i­dent Sam, a Mar­jorie Pad­more res­i­dent, said.

Sam and oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty be­lieve that many crim­i­nal and po­lit­i­cal el­e­ments in La Hor­quet­ta have an un­der­stand­ing.

“They give the bad boys all the con­tracts. It doesn’t fil­ter down to peo­ple like me. A nor­mal man like me has to line-up to see a rep­re­sen­ta­tive. A bad boy get­ting their num­ber and call­ing them,” he al­leged.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro Fos­ter Cum­mings said his of­fice does not ex­e­cute con­tracts.

“So whether it is work by the MOWT, LSA, HDC etc, there are le­gal re­quire­ments which all in­ter­est­ed par­ties must ful­fil…I ad­vise all con­stituents in­ter­est­ed in such con­tracts to or­gan­ise them­selves and their busi­ness­es in such a way that they are el­i­gi­ble to cap­i­talise on op­por­tu­ni­ties when they arise,” the Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice said.

Over at An­ci­enne Rte de Couteau Av­enue, near a drug block, the scrap­ing sound of a cut­lass against the pave­ment was heard over the chat­ter of the young men wait­ing for their next sale. A woman, in her 80s, trimmed bush.

“I love here. Forty-four years I have been liv­ing here. The com­mu­ni­ty was al­ways qui­et, but the killing start up. It had a mur­der right here on this cor­ner,” Di­ana Ever­s­ley said.

De­spite hav­ing what she called a hard life, Di­ana had a grand­moth­er’s warmth. One of her chil­dren was Stephen Ever­s­ley - one of the eight men hanged with Dole Chadee in June 1999 for the mur­der of the four mem­bers of the Ba­boolal fam­i­ly in Pi­paro.

“I miss my son, yes, but I don’t like to study it. It hurts me. That was my sixth son. I had nine chil­dren. I raised them by my­self. It was hard, get­ting ten days work, ser­vant work, then when I couldn’t take it, I went down on my knees and prayed.

“Do you know who helped me? (Bas­deo) Pan­day. I wrote to him. The next week he sent his sec­ond-hand man to my house. He showed me every let­ter I wrote. The next week I was work­ing at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal,” she said with a smile.

Di­ana worked as a ward’s maid un­til her re­tire­ment.

Her own ex­pe­ri­ence with her son al­lows her to un­der­stand the young boys work­ing the drug block.

“They are not bad. Every­body has their own ways. I love them. I beg them to be­have them­selves. I tell them not be­cause my son was hanged, I want you all to fol­low a sim­i­lar path,” she said.

Res­i­dents: Work the hard­est thing to get

Ekel An­toine, 33-years-old and his 35-year-old broth­er Akeem An­toine, both of Spree Si­mon Dri­ve, were sit­ting out­side their par­ents’ home.

“I have a new­born. I look­ing for work. That’s the hard­est thing to get right now. And those who give a lit­tle work, they not pay­ing prop­er­ly.

“My friends com­plain about the same thing. That’s why it have re­al fel­las on the cor­ner. If you wait un­til lunchtime, you’ll see the whole block full of youths and big man,” Akeem, a self-taught plumber said.

Ekel has been self-em­ployed since 16-years-old.

“You go for a job, and they ask, you where you’re from? La Hor­quet­ta. Al­right, we will call you, and they not call­ing.

“That’s what is forc­ing them to want to grow up fast. Men end up hus­tling. My hus­tling is dif­fer­ent. I de­cide to take it off of the drugs. They de­cide to do their lit­tle drugs. That’s what the youths see, and they find it nicer,” Ekel a self-taught me­chan­ic and trades­man said.

Ac­cord­ing to the broth­ers, politi­cians are out of touch with youth. They al­leged that the politi­cians seemed more in­ter­est­ed in es­tab­lish­ing con­nec­tions with the bad boys.

“When the elec­tion comes, the first man with the mon­ey come, hit the boss­es with the mon­ey and you get all the votes. That’s how elec­tions work. It’s who come and spend the dust. Don’t get me wrong, I glad when them boys get the work, but watch how many peo­ple un­em­ployed,” Akeem said.

Ekel re­cent­ly land­ed a job as a con­trac­tor for Carib af­ter im­press­ing a com­pa­ny man­ag­er with his me­chan­i­cal knowl­edge. His broth­er is still look­ing for work.

Min­is­ter Cum­mings said train­ing for un­em­ployed youth is of­fered through­out the coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter, there are projects in the pipeline for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro.

“Cab­i­net has ap­proved the con­struc­tion of a Youth De­vel­op­ment and Ap­pren­tice­ship Cen­tre (Youth Camp) to be lo­cat­ed in Waller­field. This res­i­den­tial fa­cil­i­ty will cater to both male and fe­male stu­dents and will of­fer a wide range of train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in­clud­ing dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy. We will al­so launch in the com­ing months, a Youth Busi­ness Hub which will be lo­cat­ed at the La Hor­quet­ta Vil­lage Plaza of­fer­ing a one-stop shop to en­tre­pre­neurs that will of­fer sup­port in busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion, ac­count­ing and tax­a­tion, busi­ness plan de­vel­op­ment and fi­nanc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. Cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion as well is the La Hor­quet­ta Pub­lic Li­brary for the ben­e­fit of stu­dents,” Min­is­ter Cum­mings said.

‘No progress in Tal­paro’

Rur­al and far less dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed, Tal­paro has the typ­i­cal ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of a slow­er life. At Tal­paro’s junc­tion sat two friends: a beard­ed mid­dle-aged Afro-Trinida­di­an and a bare­backed mid­dle-aged In­do-Trinida­di­an with long, black hair in a bun.

“No progress. The recre­ation­al ground is leak­ing, so the com­mu­ni­ty can’t even throw a lit­tle event. The roads are in bad con­di­tion. Land­slips like rain go­ing up the road.

“We see peo­ple from oth­er ar­eas com­ing in and work­ing in our vil­lage. No work in the vil­lage for the youths,” one of them said.

Ac­cord­ing to the men, on­ly “bad boys from La Hor­quet­ta” ben­e­fit.

“Here is such a nice place. No killing, no rob­bery. But I not vot­ing for none of them,” they said be­fore a taxi dri­ver stopped to pur­chase some cig­a­rettes.

The dri­ver and the two pas­sen­gers - all in their late 50s - shared the same com­plaints.

“A lot of things have to go on for this place to de­vel­op. The roads slant­i­ng. There is a wall there. Peo­ple have to walk from Mun­do Nue­vo to come out be­cause the road is so bad.

“Every elec­tion they promise to fix it - on­ly promis­es,” the fe­male pas­sen­ger said.

MP Cum­mings said he was aware of the in­fra­struc­tur­al work re­quired in Tal­paro.

“I con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate with both MOWT and the Cor­po­ra­tion for their ur­gent as­sis­tance, as there is much to be done to bring re­lief. There has been some work ex­e­cut­ed and there are plans to ad­dress some of the ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture is­sues on the Tal­paro Main Road, since all can­not be done con­cur­rent­ly. The MOWT has as­sured that the out­stand­ing work will com­mence as the re­sources be­come avail­able. Tal­paro will not be ex­clud­ed. I thank the res­i­dents of Tal­paro for their pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing,” Cum­mings stat­ed.