Chester Sam­bra­no

Leav­ing the place she called home for 25 years was a bit­ter pill to swal­low for Michelle Lemartre, a for­mer res­i­dent of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s (HDC) In­de­pen­dence Square apart­ments.

“For me, it was a task,” she said.

Nev­er­the­less, Lemartre chose to re­main pos­i­tive and grate­ful for her new rental lo­ca­tion at Char­ford Court in Port-of-Spain.

“I am sat­is­fied with what I got,” she said.

Lemartre said be­cause she is close to re­tire­ment she could not meet the cri­te­ria for a dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tion and arrange­ment. How­ev­er, her fo­cus is on the greater good.

“Is for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try,” she said.

Still, Lemartre griev­ed for her for­mer com­mu­ni­ty and was close to tears as she rem­i­nisced on her ex­pe­ri­ences liv­ing there.

“That area will be missed, we would be pass­ing and bawl­ing here we was, but life goes on,” she said.

It is not lost to her that some of her for­mer neigh­bours are not hap­py with the re­lo­ca­tion and she un­der­stands why.

“Is a test be­cause no­body wants to move from $100 to even $500 be­cause that is our rent,” she said.

She said she told them to be open-mind­ed be­cause “that is just how the world is now.”

The feel­ings and ad­vice were the same from Elaine Gar­raway-Alexan­der, 64, who now lives with her ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly at the La Goya De­vel­op­ment in El Do­ra­do.

“The place re­al nice. It’s easy for my grand­daugh­ter to study,”

Gar­raway-Alexan­der who had lived at the In­de­pen­dence Square apart­ment since the age of nine, has no trep­i­da­tion about leav­ing Port-of-Spain.

“Up there more safe, I be­lieve it more safe for me and my grand­chil­dren and my daugh­ter and al­so my broth­er,” she said.

Gar­raway-Alexan­der said she had known about the re­lo­ca­tion plan for about two years so she had time to pre­pare.

She had this ad­vice for those who are op­posed to the move: “All they have to do is to put their minds to­geth­er and leave. They will be good, they will be nor­mal, they will be good I be­lieve so. Chil­dren ben­e­fit, my ben­e­fit, you ain’t hear­ing no pa­tow pow!”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, HDC said there had been con­sul­ta­tions with the ten­ants through Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane since No­vem­ber 2021.

Through­out the process, it al­so is­sued sev­er­al no­tices to re­quest that res­i­dents take oc­cu­pa­tion of their new­ly as­signed units.

“How­ev­er, re­gret­tably, per­sons have en­tered in­to il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of those units that were va­cat­ed and they have re­fused to leave the units, de­spite re­peat­ed at­tempts by the HDC to have them so do. Al­so, the HDC has re­ceived re­quests from rel­a­tives, who resided with al­ready re­lo­cat­ed ten­ants, for sep­a­rate al­lo­ca­tion of a hous­ing unit as a pre-con­di­tion to their va­cat­ing the In­de­pen­dence Square Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment,” the HDC said.

Con­se­quent­ly, on March 4, the HDC “peace­ful­ly” con­duct­ed its evic­tion ex­er­cise with the as­sis­tance of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to ob­tain va­cant pos­ses­sion of all hous­ing units that were oc­cu­pied il­le­gal­ly.

The HDC said it not­ed the claim by one il­le­gal oc­cu­pant that she has no al­ter­na­tive res­i­dence for her and three chil­dren and is cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed.

“This oc­cu­pant re­mained in oc­cu­pa­tion of a hous­ing unit as­signed to her un­cle. Her un­cle, the le­git­i­mate ten­ant, was re­lo­cat­ed to a three-bed­room apart­ment unit in Orop­une to which all oc­cu­pants of the unit at the In­de­pen­dence Square Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment were ex­pect­ed to move,” the HDC said.

The HDC al­so high­light­ed that ar­rears for In­de­pen­dence Square units stand at $19,212.47 rep­re­sent­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 192 months (16 years) at $100 per month.

“The HDC will con­tin­ue to en­sure that the re­main­ing ten­ants as­sume oc­cu­pa­tion of their re­lo­cat­ed hous­ing units. The HDC will al­so act re­spon­si­bly and with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law to ob­tain va­cant pos­ses­sion of the il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­pied units to ad­vance the East Port-of-Spain Ur­ban Re­gen­er­a­tion Project as we con­tin­ue to serve the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the ex­e­cu­tion of our man­date,” it said.