Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As In­ter­na­tion­al Wid­ows Day ap­proach­es on March 8, an ap­peal is be­ing made to the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure time­ly and com­pas­sion­ate hous­ing for wid­ows.

The call was is­sued by So­raya Nanan, pres­i­dent of Wid­ow Sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go (WSTT), who says years of de­lays in hous­ing, mount­ing ex­pens­es and lim­it­ed ac­cess to sup­port sys­tems have left some wid­ows in a se­ri­ous dilem­ma.

Nanan said the or­gan­i­sa­tion met with Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee last Au­gust to dis­cuss the grow­ing num­ber of wid­ows who re­main on emer­gency hous­ing lists for years with­out al­lo­ca­tion.

“Many are fac­ing evic­tion from their homes by their in-laws or just can­not af­ford the month­ly rental,” she said.

Nanan said they were in­formed that pri­or­i­ty was be­ing giv­en to po­lice of­fi­cers and nurs­es.

“As we ap­proach In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2026 un­der the theme Give to Gain, we urge this Gov­ern­ment to take con­crete steps to en­sure that wid­ows re­ceive time­ly hous­ing, com­pas­sion­ate poli­cies and the sup­port they need to re­build their lives with dig­ni­ty.”

She added that this is­sue is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the pro­posed in­tro­duc­tion of a five per cent Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) trans­fer fee.

While pre­vi­ous at­tempts to meet with So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit have been un­suc­cess­ful, Nanan was still hope­ful they would be grant­ed an au­di­ence with the min­is­ter to dis­cuss is­sues af­fect­ing wid­ows.

“WSTT is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to grant an ur­gent meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, re­view the HDC trans­fer fee pol­i­cy with hard­ship ex­emp­tions for wid­ows, ex­pe­dite emer­gency hous­ing ap­pli­ca­tions, and stream­line ac­cess to NIS and wid­ows’ grants.”

WSTT, es­tab­lished in 2011, is a non-po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to rep­re­sent­ing wid­ows and has been ad­vo­cat­ing for pol­i­cy changes to ease the fi­nan­cial and so­cial bur­dens faced by women ad­just­ing to life af­ter the death of a spouse.