Squatters heartbroken as UDC destroys settlement
Published:Wednesday | March 30, 2022 | 12:12 AM
Albert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
A community of homeless people who captured lands owned by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) along Howard Cooke Boulevard in Montego Bay, St James, is without a place to lay their heads after their makeshift homes were destroyed by state authorities.
The property is reportedly part of an expansion plan to develop a multimillion-dollar promenade from the cruise terminal at the Montego Freeport on to Jimmy Cliff Boulevard.
Serika Bernard, one of several persons who are now affected by the UDC’s action, said she lost all her clothing and other personal effects and had hoped that the state agency would have been more lenient.
“We woke up and saw people from UDC with an open-back truck, and they just moved in and started to mash down our huts, then set fire to our clothes,” said Bernard.
According to Bernard, she has sought to make a living selling bait to fishermen along the seaside property bordering the Trumpet Call International Ministry and the River Bay Fishing Village.
Quizzed about her future, Bernard was philosophical, telling The Gleaner that she would count her losses and move on.
“I am going back home to my family in Maroon Town, I am not prepared to lose anything else like this,” she said.
A fisherman who asked that his identity be withheld said that crime in his Norwood home town had forced him to find shelter at the property.
“I am living here because it's safer. When I go out at sea and come back, I sell my fish and just live peacefully here,” he said.
Meanwhile, other members of the public are praising the action of the UDC, arguing that the site was not conducive to human habitation.
“I am in support of the UDC; they must go find a place to live. These people, some homeless and others who have been squatting on the property, building thatched huts with tarpaulin and nets all over the place, were not looking good,” said Joseph Bernard, citing the settlement as a public-health and environmental hazard.
“They can't live here. They have no bathroom facility and those things that come with a proper residential dwelling are there,” he added.
The UDC has been long concerned with the influx of illegal occupants on lands owned by the corporation, including in Catherine Hall, St James.
In response to a query from The Gleaner, the UDC said that multiple notices were issued to the unauthorised occupants of the lands in Catherine Hall as far back as 2018 and as recent as earlier this month.
“Many have complied with the notices by removing their temporary structures and items prior to today’s exercise,” said a statement from the UDC.
“Today, in an operation, the corporation removed the remaining temporary structures.”
The UDC said that it remained committed to maintaining the assets vested to it by the Government "in a manner reflective of orderly national development”.