Residents of shanty towns in Abaco speaking to government representatives visiting the area.
By RICARDO WELLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
rwells@tribunemedia.net
SHANTY town residents in Abaco say they have nowhere else to go, adding xenophobia and unaddressed tensions between Bahamians and people of Haitian descent have caused unregulated communities to flourish.
As government officials assessed the Pigeon Peas shanty town on Saturday, some residents questioned whether the government's plan to regulate these communities could actually work.
"We here because we get crush in here," one resident said. "You can try and get out, but they hate us so much they don't let us go no place else."
Nildles Vincent, a single mother of two who assisted members of the Abaco branch of the government's Shanty Town Action Task Force during its assessment exercise, said whether residents are first generation Haitians with residency permits or Bahamians of Haitian heritage, the attitudes of Abaconians toward shanty town residents are often inhumane and condescending.
"We do this, live this way because it is all we have," she said. "We can go out and pay rent if it was affordable. But the second they see the Haitian in you, then you know the price go up.
"When I came to The Bahamas, I knew it would be hard, but I didn't think it would be like this. Every day you are being hunted and taken advantage of.
"We work together and build for the next person until we have a roof over us. We do this because that is all we have. I asked the police in town, when they come in here and knock (our homes) down, where can we go?
"They are not going to help us or look out for us. They think we are all illegal and dirty. I can pay the rent - $300, $400 or $500… the people out in the town want $900, $1,000 and more. I can't get that and feed my family."
Across the community, Paul Boniface, 37, born in The Bahamas but deported along with his parents when he was just five years old, said the years of unaddressed tension between Bahamians and Haitians in Abaco has driven a wedge between the two groups.
He said the tensions have grown to a point to where Haitians and those of Haitian heritage are viewed through the lens of what service they can provide and not as people.
"You think we like living like this? I don't think no one here would say the way we are living, that we are living right. It's hard most of the time but we have to do whatever it takes to live and stay here," he said. "I work when I can, but it is little money. I came back to The Bahamas for my son to have a chance. That's why my parents came and that is why I came back.
"I was born here. We stay here, like this in the Haitian village because we do not have a choice. When we go out there we getting treated wrong. We work, we get little money. We go shop out there, they give us big bill and we have to pay because no one looks out for us."
Of his current bid for legal status, he claimed: "Even with the paper, if you don't save up and go to Nassau and spend the time to do it yourself, the officers here take your money and say paper lost.
"I put my paper in from 2010, still nothing. It is hard on us."
The Abaco arm of the task force is operating with a ten-member central unit and an auxiliary team of up to 60 members.
Comments
birdiestrachan 6 years, 4 months ago
I will never disrespect the Haitian people or their decedents. But according to what they are saying if true. they would be better off in Haiti.. because things are really bad for them in the Bahamas.
John 6 years, 4 months ago
The definite for low cost affordable housing in the developing islands. Haitians will have to learn to assimilate. Keep cleaner sorroundings, use the laundromat instead of hanging clothes on the line and cut down their family sizes to make accommodations more affordable.
DDK 6 years, 4 months ago
These "shanty towns" have only flourished because of lack of governance by almost every agency, department or ministry. If the current government is finally going to ensure that rules and regulations are obeyed by all, then these folk will have to join the rest of the country or take off. They should have accumulated quite a savings by now, or would have if all savings were not sent out of the country to bring in more under the radar. Things are tough and times are hard for most Bahamians so it is more than ridiculous to play the xenophobia card.
OriginalBey 6 years, 4 months ago
You packaged it quite nicely
bogart 6 years, 4 months ago
Pointed all this out prior to this anticipated outcome. ........Its supply and demand forces at work....the landlords knowing the demand overwhelms supply of rental units simply hold out for highest rents.....POETIC JUSTICE...?...just as the haitian shanty town workers living in low cost homes and have minimum fixed costs in illegally built shanty......could have undermined the regular rate of wages Bahamians pay to live in the real lawabiding world ........Haituns legal Bahamians or not.....welcome to the real world...and join the line of many Bahamian workers you put unemployed all a we now crying pore mout fer help....equal loving expected all ways round .....!!!....funny when yinna in da illegal shantytown all yall crying yinna Bahamian.....now yall have to live like real Bahamians scrappin, yinna is Haishun.....lol
sheeprunner12 6 years, 4 months ago
These non-Bahamian people must not think that they can come here and live like they do in the slums of Port-au-Prince .......... They cannot expect our laws to be disregarded by them and we not try to correct this problem ............. That is really delusional on their behalf.
True, there may be unscrupulous slum lords out there ........... but they must be prosecuted as well.
SP 6 years, 4 months ago
Finally, we are headed in the right direction to level the playing field!
These people work for the same amounts as the average Bahamian but choose to live below the poverty level like sardines in cans, pay no water, light, phone, NIB, laundry etc' bills AND send a good % of earnings back to Haiti to help family and bring in more parasites as well.
Now they will have to pay rent, light, phone, and water bills like everybody else! This will cause a correction that might force them to better assimilate when they find themselves living hand to mouth for survival like everybody else and do not have the luxury of excess cash.
The 1st reality they will face is landlords will not tolerate overcrowding and poor upkeep of their rental properties!
I visited 3 money transfer outlets today and couldn't even get in the doors because of these people. Many of them have 2 jobs and make more than the average Bahamian but choose to live like rodents for the convenience of saving and repatriating funds.
TheMadHatter 6 years, 4 months ago
How is it that the population of the Mud and Peas for decades is just the right amount of people to fill the space? Not too few? Not too many? Coincidence? Or some brilliant management scheme?
That is the true mystery here.
ohdrap4 6 years, 4 months ago
the rent in abaco will be 900 or more regardless of who you are. the products and services are expensive regardless of who you are.
the salaries are lower in abaco too, compared to similar jobs in nassau.
in reality, even bahamians who live in the shanty town have to stay there because, to afford 1000 dollars a month it takes 3 working adults, and they will bring with them 6 children and gramma to live in a 2 bedroom apartment. the landlord then evicts them.
JackArawak 6 years, 4 months ago
I couldn't agree more. As a white Abaconian it is distressing how expensive rent is and life in general is........it doesn't matter who you are, Abaco is so expensive it's a wonder we don't have thousands living on the streets
TheMadHatter 6 years, 4 months ago
The "CROWN" owns all the land in Abaco, and our "independent" government can do nothing about it. Bahamians have no land, so they must rent from the few who control all of it or pay mortgage to the "banks" (as they call themselves).
In a few days on July 10th - Bahamians across the nation will celebrate their slavery under the Crown and the fact that they have no land to live upon and enjoy the fruits of rent and mortgage debts.
The Government knows how stupid we are (collectively) and they will actively encourage these "celebrations" to continue to keep the people stupid. They like stupid people. They are easy to swing, and not just once a year either.
licks2 6 years, 4 months ago
Don't pull the rest of us into the collective stupidity of the few. . .perhaps ignorant, but not the nonsensical non-reasoning like that around this site. . . THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE ARE NOTORIOUS FOR SENDING MULTI-MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO HAITI. . . they cannot ship out millions yearly and then complain that they cannot find money to pay the rent in Abaco. . .THEN PERHAPS YOU CAN'T LIVE IN ABACO IF YOU CAN''T AFFORD THE REQUESTED PAYMENT BY LANDLORDS. . . anywhere in this country you either pay the amount requested. . .talk the landlord down. . .or go somewhere else!!
sealice 6 years, 4 months ago
more like... in a few days Bahamians will celebrate the fact that they voted out their white slave masters and voted in their black slave masters and nothing much has changed in 40+ years.....Yay independance.....
joeblow 6 years, 4 months ago
**"We do this, live this way because it is all we have," she said. "We can go out and pay rent if it was affordable. But the second they see the Haitian in you, then you know the price go up.
"When I came to The Bahamas, I knew it would be hard, but I didn't think it would be like this. Every day you are being hunted and taken advantage of.**
And still they do not leave but rather stay and breed burdening schools and clinics. This country is the one being taken advantage of, big time!.
TheMadHatter 6 years, 4 months ago
Correct, fully, 100%. Apparently the most expensive thing in Abaco is condoms. They must cost even more than $900 each, just like the rent.
TheMadHatter 6 years, 4 months ago
Licks2 - a report came out about a month ago that listed remittances to Haiti by country. Canada and others far exceed us, but our number is $58M. They are all over the world doing the same thing. One giant coordinated global army, pretending to be poor and downtrodden.
However, now i think the ghost costume mask has been ripped off, like at the end of a Scooby Doo show. People worldwide are waking up to their devices - them and the towel-heads playing games in Europe.
sheeprunner12 6 years, 4 months ago
So, true .......... and more than double that when you add up all of the expenses they cost our Government services ...... repatriation ..... crime etc.
tell_it_like_it_is 6 years, 4 months ago
I always get backlash for this because of the xenophobic nature of our society but I feel there has to be a way to be fair to Bahamians, while still treating Haitians with more respect than they are shown. I don't believe in shanty towns... but besides that many Bahamians treat Haitians terribly (as if they are sub-human).
Yet at the same time we call ourselves a "Christian" nation. God created all of us equally. We will be judged by the way we treat our fellow man. Let's hold up the laws of the land, but do so in a humane manner. (I don't know what the solution is but let's remember that God made them too.)
PastorTroy 6 years, 4 months ago
Yeah? You think this bad? try riding through 'Lil Haiti' in Florida with your Bahamian flag blowing on your car, see if you make it out alive. I don't condone treating anyone less than human (whatever that means) however, but, the idea that making it easier for those regardless of their national origin who continue to BLATANTLY break the law, deliberately refusing to add to the build-up of the country but just sucking it dry, and adding unsustainable strain to the public sector that those who have pride, those who try to stay within the law have to pay for while they themselves are having a difficult time make sense? Migration is good, but help build the country rather than just sucking it dry, then leaving and moving on to the next juicy prey, leaving us with just flies and bones to build it up again.
sheeprunner12 6 years, 4 months ago
So true Pastor Troy ........ Miami is so ghettoized that they even have Bahamian enclaves ........ But this breeds serious problems with administering and securing these multi-national ghettos ......... Too much national security risk
Porcupine 6 years, 4 months ago
You will always get backlash by those who gave up honest thinking long ago. Which is most of the world now, The Bahamas is no exception. It is much more convenient to blame our problems on "others" rather than see the rot that has occurred for generations now among our own people. Do we not read the other stories in the paper, that do not involve Haitians, which have brought our country to our knees?
TheMadHatter 6 years, 4 months ago
Porcupine, your weed must the really good high grade stuff.
pocoloo 6 years, 4 months ago
I had family members who lived next door to some Haitian people. If you come from a shanty town I probably won't rent to you. Most of them do not abide by the occupancy rule and most landlord will not tolerate that.
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