Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help (NC­SH) Lim­it­ed have vis­it­ed the Laven­tille Road, San Juan home of Adan­na Winn, who has been liv­ing in a se­vere­ly di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­ture for years. How­ev­er, she was left dis­ap­point­ed af­ter be­ing de­nied a grant for re­fur­bish­ment works.

Near­ly a month ago, Guardian Me­dia in­ter­viewed Winn, who plead­ed with the Gov­ern­ment for as­sis­tance to re­pair her home or to pro­vide a safe place for her to live. “All I want is just to be com­fort­able, you know, and get a lil’ peace of mind,” she said at the time.

When Winn re­ceived a call from Self Help on Tues­day, she felt a sense of re­lief—but that was short-lived af­ter the rep­re­sen­ta­tives in­formed her they could not present her with a $25,000 grant be­cause she does not own the prop­er­ty.

“When the man set­ting up the cam­era, he let the man know doh both­er with that for­get that, be­cause this what I bring here for you, I can­not dis­trib­ute this to you know­ing this place is a rental,” she re­called.

The sin­gle moth­er said she has been cry­ing since. “Mon­day, I done had a hard day al­ready, de­pressed and so down and then Tues­day, now all yuh come to do what, to make me cry. I done wake up down and de­pressed boy, al­ready, and re­al­ly come now and make me cry and gone, dust all yuh bot­tom and gone all yuh way. I re­al­ly had hope,” she said.

She added, “I ran out all the road be­hind the ve­hi­cle cry­ing.”

In No­vem­ber, Winn had told Guardian Me­dia that she first be­came home­less in 2011 and was of­fered the di­lap­i­dat­ed prop­er­ty to rent. She said the land­lord lat­er told her to use the rent mon­ey to car­ry out re­pairs in­stead—in­for­ma­tion she main­tains all the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties have. Af­ter the house be­gan col­laps­ing last year, she reached out to sev­er­al of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for St Ann’s East Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and coun­cil­lor for Febeau/Bourg Mu­la­tresse Jenise Cow­ard-Charles, who as­sist­ed her with emer­gency let­ters to take to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and Self Help.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, in­ter­im CEO of the com­mis­sion, Garvin Ro­main, who was part of the team that vis­it­ed Winn, said the grant that would have al­lowed her to pur­chase ma­te­ri­als for re­pairs is not giv­en to peo­ple who earn in­come from their prop­er­ties, such as through op­er­at­ing a mi­ni-mart or rent­ing. He added that she al­so can­not use the ma­te­r­i­al at an­oth­er ad­dress, which Winn had pro­posed to the team. Ro­main said he was un­aware that Winn was rent­ing but promised to reach out to oth­er agen­cies to see whether they can as­sist her.

Winn, how­ev­er, is not stand­ing idly by. She has made a list of ma­te­ri­als and, through the lit­tle she has and do­na­tions re­ceived, is pur­chas­ing sup­plies to patch up the di­lap­i­dat­ed struc­ture. Any­one will­ing to as­sist can con­tact her at 268-7785 or 327-2802.