Res­i­dents of Ram­jat­tan Trace, La Hor­quet­ta, are un­sure what to ex­pect in the com­ing days, as they fear that work crews and bull­doz­ers may ar­rive at any mo­ment to de­stroy their homes.

In the lat­est de­vel­op­ment, res­i­dents piled heaps of de­bris, tyres and gal­vanise at the en­trance to the squat­ting com­mu­ni­ty, just off Tumpuna Road, from as ear­ly as 4 am yes­ter­day, as they an­tic­i­pat­ed the ar­rival of heavy ma­chin­ery to be­gin de­mo­li­tion.

How­ev­er, up to late yes­ter­day, no homes were de­stroyed. The res­i­dents claim they were is­sued no­tices from an un­known agency, warn­ing them to va­cate the prop­er­ty by last Mon­day.

The no­tice, which did not car­ry the let­ter­head of any spe­cif­ic agency or gov­ern­ment min­istry, was un­der­signed, “By Or­der of the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands.”

Guardian Me­dia tried to con­tact Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands Paula Drakes via phone call and What­sApp mes­sage but did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment on Sat­ur­day, Drakes said she could not ver­i­fy if the or­ders came from her of­fice, as she was not in the of­fice at that time. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, sev­er­al res­i­dents said they were frus­trat­ed over the un­cer­tain­ty and felt they were liv­ing in con­stant fear of los­ing their homes with­out any re­dress.

Res­i­dent Adele Year­wood said she has lived in Ram­jat­tan Trace for decades and was in the process of pay­ing off a loan she used to fix her home, not­ing that the com­mu­ni­ty was the on­ly home she ever knew. She said the un­ease al­so af­fect­ed the vil­lage’s chil­dren, as many par­ents kept their chil­dren home from school be­cause they were un­sure what to ex­pect if they left their homes.

“We don’t know what will hap­pen here. No­body is telling us any­thing. You can leave to drop your child off to school and come back and see noth­ing where your house used to be when you re­turn.”

Year­wood said in ad­di­tion to the un­cer­tain­ty, res­i­dents were al­so up­set by the lack of in­for­ma­tion from the au­thor­i­ties about what could be done or what op­tions they had to save their homes.

“If al­lyuh want al­lyuh land, you all could come for al­lyuh land, but come and talk to the peo­ple and find out if you can re­lo­cate us. Out here is hard, and Trinidad is a very hard place. Not every­one can af­ford to go some­where and pay rent.”

The res­i­dents said they had a rest­less Mon­day night, fear­ing the worst. They gath­ered, hop­ing to meet with any of­fi­cials who might vis­it to be­gin de­mo­li­tion and evic­tion ef­forts.

How­ev­er, as the crowd gath­ered, Ram­jat­tan Trace res­i­dent Bri­an Dalips­ingh walked past the vil­lagers wear­ing a PNM T-shirt, prompt­ing jeers and in­sults from the irate crowd. Af­ter a brief ar­gu­ment, Dalips­ingh walked away while the res­i­dents calmed down.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Dy­lan Car­dinez, said the threat of los­ing his home was es­pe­cial­ly fright­en­ing for him be­cause he had two daugh­ters, ages three and five.

He, along with oth­er res­i­dents, called on La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings to meet with them to dis­cuss a way for­ward.

“We need him (Cum­mings) to come here and talk to the peo­ple and them.

"Even if they need us to move, we need some­where to go; we can’t af­ford to rent.” Guardian Me­dia tried to con­tact Cum­mings via phone call and What­sApp but was un­suc­cess­ful.