Dirt poor in Portmore - Couple seeks assistance to secure home for themselves, infant
Published:Thursday | June 18, 2020 | 12:00 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
“If mosquito could draw us out a di house, we dead long time because while we can use old clothes to help keep rain out, we cannot stop mosquitoes from coming in,” Tashana Lake told The Gleaner as she summed up her living conditions.
She lives with her 50-year-old common-law husband, Everton Clarke, and their two-year-old daughter in a rickety shack in the bushes off Municipal Boulevard, better known as I-95, in Portmore, St Catherine.
The couple told The Gleaner that they have been living in the deplorable state for over two years. Their makeshift shelter, constructed out of sheets of zinc, leaks when it rains, and the heat at nights is unbearable.
Clarke, who was busy patching up his bicycle when our news team visited, said that a previous house he had built was destroyed by arsonists and the replacement he struggled to rebuild was later torn down by the municipal police.
He compared the deplorable living conditions as to that of hogs living wild. At the front of the yard was an uncovered pit latrine, and at the back of the zinc shelter is an open area, where sticks are gathered for cooking.
“Only God can tell you how we nuh dead yet,” Clarke said.
“We used to sell right over there so,” he added, pointing to a shaded area under an overgrown tree along the busy roadway. “We used to sell plantains, and it used to give us a little money to buy food maybe for the next day, but since COVID and dem shut down Portmore, we nuh get any to sell. So now we living at the mercies of others and their goodwill.”
He said that the family is allowed access to pipes on a nearby farm to source water.
“Sometimes I just ride the bicycle to go get some. It is hard, but I have to still try to care for my family,” Clarke said.
The couple said that municipality officials have not made an effort to assist them, and they have not seen their political representatives. A good Samaritan has, however, offered to “put them up”, and Food For The Poor has promised to build them a house. The drawback? They have no land on which it could be built.
While it is believed that there are thousands of homeless persons in the island, only 1,971 are officially registered, according to the Jamaica Information Service.
Government-sponsored drop-in centres were built in St Elizabeth last May, and in St Ann and St Mary in 2018, but many of Jamaica’s homeless have never set foot inside the shelters even as the Government moves to construct another on King Street in Kingston at a projected cost of $120 million.
Clarke, who fathers another three children, is hoping for a change.
The couple said that they have been getting a bit of assistance since their plight was highlighted on Television Jamaica some time ago, but with that came “unnecessary attention”.
They are accusing the police of being insensitive, attempting to separate their child from them.
“Dem wicked, man, because before them help we, seeing the situation that we inna, di police come fi take away our baby last week because dem say we nuh live nowhere,” said Lake.
“If it weren’t for one lady, only God could tell us what would happen to us. And if they had taken my daughter, I wouldn’t know what to do. She is the most important thing to me. If a fi dead, mek mi dead with her,” she added.