The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

RESTLESS residents of the Kool Acres and All Saints Way shanty towns have packed their bags and secured their belongings, ready to leave before the bulldozers arrive.

There is just one problem: they don’t know where to go.

Mercidieu Pierre, 53, reckons his car will become his temporary shelter.

Glaides, 52, believes she will be pushed onto the streets.

Juline Oilbrice, 32, a jobless mother-of-seven, hopes the Ministry of Social Services intervenes or that the Davis administration changes its mind.

“I is a PLP,” she whispered to The Tribune yesterday. “I vote for them, so they need to try to help me.”

Successive administrations have pledged to eradicate shanty towns, but for dozens in Kool Acres and All Saints Way, the longstanding threat is more imminent than ever.

The Ministry of Works said Sunday that the 28-day eviction notice residents received earlier this month has ended.

Unlike in the past, there are no immediate signs that the government’s plans will be stymied in courts –– not after Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson ruled that the Minnis administration’s 2018 shanty town eradication policies were legal.

In the House of Assembly yesterday, Works Minister Clay Sweeting outlined the rationale for the government’s actions, saying they will stop developments that could harm people’s health, the environment and the community.

For the government, demolishing homes while avoiding a humanitarian problem could be a daunting challenge.

Only two of nearly a dozen residents The Tribune spoke to yesterday said they are employed, and they claimed they are only temporary workers.

 Some residents said many potential rental units are unavailable because they are being renovated.

 Others said landlords have strict rules about how many children can live in a space, prohibiting families with more than a few children.

 The Tribune could not confirm before press time widespread reports in the communities that the government has granted a five-day grace period and that demolitions would begin on Monday. The Unregulated Communities Task Force, the body managing the process, will host a press conference today.

 “Apartments are so expensive,” said Chantal Petitifrere. “And a lot of them, they don’t want no children. Either you have one or two. One bedroom is $800. Not a lot of people in the yard is working.”

 Ms Petitifrere said she hasn’t seen anyone move out of the All Saints Way community yet.

 Some residents said government workers had not contacted them, but others said “inspectors” had come around.

 Ms Petitifrere claimed an official told her the government would help cover her housing needs for three months if she found a unit.

 Among those uncertain about the future is Ketteny Lefrance, the mother of three children who fended for themselves earlier this month after immigration officers posted eviction notices and apprehended people who could not prove they had legal status to be in the country. The children were at school when she was taken. Acting Immigration Director William Pratt later said she didn’t tell officials she had children because she feared they would be repatriated to Haiti.

 Ms Lefrance said she spent 17 days in the state’s custody and has not had time to look for new living arrangements. She also said she is unemployed.

 She said one thing is sure: she will not return to Haiti.

 As The Tribune interviewed her, a man interjected, insisting without proof that multiple children from the community who were repatriated to Haiti had already died and that some of the adults had been kidnapped amid the gang violence and instability there.