Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox, is mak­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an call to land­lords to hold their hands in evict­ing ten­ants who can­not af­ford to pay their rent.

This, as Cox con­firmed on Mon­day, evic­tion no­tices were on the rise in T&T as those on the bread­line, in­clud­ing sin­gle moth­ers strug­gle to pay rent.

In an of­fi­cial writ­ten re­sponse to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia, Cox said, “Through the Min­istry’s crit­i­cal in­ci­dence mech­a­nism re­ports are be­ing re­ceived from mem­bers of the pub­lic, as well as me­dia per­son­nel on var­i­ous so­cial is­sues that re­quire emer­gency in­ter­ven­tion. These in­clude re­ports of sin­gle moth­ers and their chil­dren be­ing forced to turn to the streets fol­low­ing evic­tion and or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.”

Cox wrote, “We want to ask land­lords to have some com­pas­sion for their ten­ants, dur­ing these un­prece­dent­ed and chal­leng­ing times. We must un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate that some per­sons have been placed in un­ten­able sit­u­a­tions giv­en COVID-19 re­stric­tions. We must be mind­ful of the need to come to­geth­er and sup­port each oth­er, as we share the eco­nom­ic bur­dens at this time.”

Last Thurs­day an of­fi­cial from the Min­istry said it was in­un­dat­ed by evic­tion com­plaints, with a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high in­ci­dence among sin­gle moth­ers.

That in­for­ma­tion was dis­closed to Guardian Me­dia when that the of­fi­cial was con­tact­ed to as­sist Guardian Me­dia, in find­ing help for a young sin­gle moth­er of two who was about to be evict­ed.

The Min­is­ter’s call comes in light of there be­ing no pan­dem­ic-re­lat­ed or­ders to pro­tect ten­ants from be­ing evict­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to COX, the Min­istry of­fers a Rent As­sis­tance Grant for up to three months. In the first in­stance, the grant is val­ued at $2,500.

But the grant may not be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble, as, in ad­di­tion to pass­ing a Stan­dard Means Test, land­lords must agree to this arrange­ment. Troy Pol­lanais, the Di­rec­tor of So­cial Wel­fare said un­for­tu­nate­ly few land­lords were will­ing.

“There are quite a num­ber of land­lords out there who have ad­vised that they’re not will­ing to en­ter such an agree­ment, as such our hands will be tired, even if that per­son pass­es the Stan­dard Means Test,” Pol­lanais told Guardian Me­dia.

But the founder of the Rental As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (RATT), dis­put­ed Pol­lanais’ ex­pla­na­tion say­ing the process was flawed.

“There is noth­ing in place. I have been reach­ing out to so­cial wel­fare as well be­cause peo­ple are say­ing so­cial wel­fare is promis­ing them as­sis­tance with the rent and the land­lords are fed up wait­ing and this is why they are be­ing evict­ed,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

White said NGOs could on­ly do so much since many shel­ters were full while oth­ers have re­duced their in­take due to COVID-19.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said due to an in­flux of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es, shel­ters were now forced to pri­ori­tise in­take.

Peo­ple fac­ing evic­tion may con­tact the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment’s call cen­tre at 800 – 1MSD (1673); The Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion for free coun­selling and psy­choso­cial sup­port at 623 – 2608; Ext 6701 – 6707 and the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence hot­line at 800-SAVE.

Read the full sto­ry in to­mor­row’s Guardian News­pa­per

Re­porter: Bo­bie-Lee Dixon