Mother of five pleads for HDC home

The distraught woman visited Newsday’s head office on Chacon Street, Port-of-Spain, yesterday and said she was given until tomorrow to vacate the house she had been occupying with her children for the past ten years. The youngest child, four months old, was born with a hole in the heart.

Williams said she moved to Clifford and Norfolk Streets, Belmont, after the house she had been renting at Third Street, Barataria, burned down.

She said the owner of the property allowed her to live there rent free while she acted as his caretaker and kept the place clean, while her mother took care of the man’s disabled niece and nephew.

“Where I am living now, the property has been sold and the new owner gave me until Friday to leave. The property sell, I have no problem with that. I can’t fault the man with that because look how long he let me stay there. It was because he was related to the owner of the first place that burned down that he gave me a chance to stay when we had no rights at the time,” Williams explained.

The worried mother, who has been on her own for most of her life, said being without a home just opened people up to feelings of hopelessness and of being advantaged by others.

“I work hard, I don’t break the law. I always have something to do. I make things like pone, paime, kurma, sweetbread, juices from whatever is in season and I sell to the business people in the community.

I do domestic work and I even braid hair. I don’t ever have nothing to do,” she said.

Williams said she has been pleading with the HDC since her first place burned down, but she has received no positive response from them.

“They (HDC) interviewed me in July, and they tell me they misplaced my paperwork, so I tell them well, do it over. I applied for a house over ten years now, begging them for a place for me and my children, but nothing ever came out of it.

“I don’t want to take my children and sleep under the Dry River. I just want a home, I could pay an instalment, I will do whatever I have to do. I just want them to consider my application,” Williams pleaded.

Attempts to contact the HDC for information about Williams’ case were unsuccessful.