Seven families evicted from Malick homes
Gyasi Gonzales ggonzales@trinidadexpress.com
Friday, February 9th 2007
THE Housing Development Corporation's eviction of seven Sixth Avenue, Malick, tenants for non-payment of rent yesterday ended with the the residents protesting in front of the corporation's South Quay, Port of Spain office.
The seven families, including Yvette Simon, her three sons and two daughters were served notices indicating that they owed the HDC more than $10,000 in outstanding rent.
The rents for the varying homes are between $150 to $200 a month.
Around 11 a.m., HDC officials and heavily armed police officers descended on Simon's home.
After telling her to gather her valuables, they began moving out her items.
Lesley John, communications manager at the HDC said that the company's eviction exercise began this week.
"Eviction is the final step in a long process," she said.
Tenants were given three letters each about 14 days to a month apart during which they were invited to visit the company, explain their situation and work out a solution.
"We usually tend to work on a case by case basis where we sit with the tenants and work out a payment plan and out of the HDC's 9,000 tenants only a small number are issued notices of arrears and even a smaller number refuse to reply to any of the letters."
John said: "The average arrears is over $10,000 which means that some tenants had not paid their rent in the last seven years. The monthly rent is $150 a month, about $4 a day. That's less than a bottle of water."
Last month Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar told residents the HDC was planning to construct several high-rise apartments in the area.
Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley met with the residents urging them not to listen to the Opposition, and saying that when the apartments were completed they would be allowed back in.