Living in death traps

Cecile Walker, acting president of the Greenwich Town Community Development Committee (CDC), used Thursday’s handover ceremony for green spaces at the St Andrew Primary School and Greenwich Town Fishing Village to call attention to the deplorable condition under which some residents were living, with many of their houses not fit for habitation.

Walker, who brought greetings on behalf of the committee, heaped praise on the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), which has been funding a number of socio-economic improvement projects in Greenwich Town.

She told the audience that research has shown that green spaces such as parks and play areas for children are especially important in urban communities, where they have been shown to have a very positive effect on both the physical and mental well-being of the residents.

“Green spaces are very important in these communities where there is crime, where there is violence, where there is lack of socialisation, and where there is abuse of children. These green spaces will help to mitigate some of the social ills that are in our communities,” Walker said.

She then pleaded for more assistance to improve the housing stock throughout the community.

“I have come here to plead and to beg for help, especially when I am in august company like Dr [Angela] Brown Burke. I feel, as a community member living in Greenwich Town for most of my life, that a part of the development that needs to happen in our community is that we look at the housing stock,” she said, noting the presence of the member of parliament for St Andrew South Western at the event.

“Moving around in the community and visiting homes in my different capacities, there are some homes that I am supposed to enter that I can’t,” Walker agonised.

The acting CDC president later told The Gleaner that as a member of one of the charity arms of the Roman Catholic Church, she often visits the poor, including shut-ins, and noted that at some of these dwellings, the risk of personal injury was quite high as many of the buildings are literally falling down.

“If you enter and brush against the doorpost, you not sure that it won’t fall down. When you walk on the floorboard, you not sure you won’t drop in. So along with all that you have been doing, for which we are very grateful, I would love to see if all of us could put our hearts and hands together and our skills to think about how we could improve the housing stock,” she appealed.

Walker told The Gleaner that owners of many of the premises in Greenwich Town have died and their current occupants are not paying rent. Despite this, they continue to live in these death traps without there being any maintenance for decades.

Leaking or non-existent roofs, rotted floor boards, and papered-over windows were common, she disclosed.

Responding to Walker’s plea, Brown Burke admitted that a lot of work is needed to address the potentially life-threatening situation.

“I welcome the call that you have made,” she said, explaining that a mix of short-term interventions and a long-term investment in the early child education sector would be needed to combat intergenerational poverty, which seemed to be at the root of the problem.

Brown Burke, who is also the opposition spokesperson on education and training, noted that appropriate investments in early childhood education help lay a solid foundation for all the children and set them on path of positivity.

“I am almost certain that when those children become adults, they would have started their businesses or gone to university, if that is what they wanted to do, and become good citizens - that they are going to be in a better place, where they don’t have to ask the JSIF to fix those houses but to do it themselves. That is the Jamaica I would want to see,” the member of parliament said.

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com