AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter what she de­scribes as an il­le­gal evic­tion by agents al­leged­ly at­tached to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), Za­kiya Ram­sey and her fam­i­ly re­main home­less, strug­gling to cope.

Last Fri­day, Ram­sey said HDC agents stormed and de­stroyed prop­er­ty in the Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas apart­ment she was giv­en in 2008, fol­low­ing a fire that had left the fam­i­ly pre­vi­ous­ly home­less.

In 2016, Ram­sey said HDC ad­mit­ted the apart­ment had been mis­al­lo­cat­ed and grant­ed her le­gal per­mis­sion to oc­cu­py it as a li­censee while await­ing re­lo­ca­tion to a per­ma­nent home.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ram­sey said her hus­band and three chil­dren are now left with­out a roof over their heads, forced to sleep in the rain.

“I am in the dew with my chil­dren and them. And two young ladies who right now on their pe­ri­od with no wash­room, no toi­let fa­cil­i­ties. And no food,” Ram­sey told Guardian Me­dia.

“None of my chil­dren did go to school be­cause we can’t find noth­ing. We have noth­ing,” Ram­sey said, re­count­ing the evic­tion process.

Ram­sey said she feels hu­mil­i­at­ed, fear­ing she is now viewed as a “char­i­ty case” af­ter years of work­ing with her hus­band to pro­vide for the fam­i­ly.

Ram­sey was re­cent­ly di­ag­nosed with de­pres­sion and had to take time off work.

“I am on­ly over­tak­ing med­ica­tion and try­ing to keep my­self as calm as I can…but I feel like I’m get­ting in­to the same stage...This is too much for me to bear.”

Act­ing on be­half of the fam­i­ly, at­tor­ney Steven Maw­er told Guardian Me­dia that HDC should pro­vide the fam­i­ly with hous­ing as promised and com­pen­sate them for the de­struc­tion of their be­long­ings.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed HDC’s chair­man, Feeroz Khan, who said he was in a meet­ing and asked that ques­tions be sent via text. How­ev­er, no re­sponse was re­ceived un­til press time.