Can two wrongs make a right?

In the first instance, the families were lawfully wrong to trespass and in the second instance, the HDC is morally wrong to evict them offering no alternative, especially since innocent children are involved.

Then there is the issue of when and why the buildings were condemned and why had the HDC not acted earlier to ensure the buildings remained unoccupied, instead of some 25 families later.

The HDC claims it visited the families yet one person who stated that he lived there for three years made no mention of this. The question then arises as to how many visits were made by the HDC and how many warning letters, if any, were issued.

Apparently, these people were not given the option to visit the HDC and pay the rental fee for fit, available apartments elsewhere, seeing that they had already fixed some of the issues with their own finances.

Where were the councillors for this area on both sides of the fence during this period of illegal occupancy? Were they not aware of this situation? One person stated that she went to a minister and had an application since 2007, another is a UWI student.

Obviously they are not deviants.

An HDC official stated that they could pay rent otherwise but obviously this person is not aware of the exorbitant money being called for by most greedy landlords who have not paid property taxes to the State since 2009, yet rent continues to escalate. In some cases the rents of $2,500 or $3,000 for one and two-bedroom apartments are the total, or maybe more, of some of these people’s salaries. With children to provide for and food to buy, this may be mathematically, practically, impossible.

It is no secret that the cost of living in this country is ridiculous and there are no systems in place to protect citizens and consumers from some of these eye-gougers posing as businessmen, who have made a career out of evading the system themselves.

Off course the families were wrong to occupy the buildings but moving in on them in a heavy-handed manner and putting things that people worked hard to obtain by the side of the government road does not appear to be a humane or proper solution to the problem, which is adequate and affordable housing for those in need.

Things are so bad for some of our citizens that they believe they have no alternative but to literally break and enter and abide. Were we then mistaken to believe that the HDC’s mandate was to provide housing? In some cases allegations have been made of land and business owners owning more than one HDC house or apartment when one of the mandates was supposed to be that once one has such interest they were not entitled to State housing.

Where then, does the error lie? If one does something wrong and then someone else commits another wrong to correct the first wrong, does that make it right? We must examine our conscience in making decisions involving people, especially young children.

However, daily, when we open the newspapers and see what is going on, we should not be surprised.

No one should have slept comfortably knowing that those children were under the elements.

The issue should not be the wrongs of those people but how do we move to rectify the problem in such a way as to preserve the State’s interest built with taxpayers’ money, while executing what should be one of the State’s main mandates, which is to provide resources for its citizens, especially children, the less fortunate and the elderly.

We complain about the savagery all around us in the streets but when we look at the inhumanity behind some decisions coming from the top, we should not be surprised.

Lorren Medford- Pryce via email