The sight of galvanised sheets sprawled like a tattered blanket over the wooden remnants of what was once a family home, serves as a grim reminder and recurring nightmare of the homelessness that threatens to become a reality for young mother Tiasha Edmund and her four children.
By now, most are familiar with the plight of Ramjattan Trace residents. Residents from the humble community in La Horquetta, which lies within earshot of the sound of speeding cars on the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, found bulldozers at their doorsteps earlier this month as the state came to reclaim its land. The demolition stopped on the cusp of Edmund’s home. Her wooden structure stands for now, but she is afraid that it too will soon be reduced to rubble.
“You have a fear that they could come back at any moment,” Edmund said.
“My son, he would ask, like mummy what we will do? They coming for us next?”
Life has not been easy for the 25-year-old mother.
Edmund has never had the security of a home. As a teenager, she bounced around from house to house, sometimes three months at a time. When she became pregnant at 16 years old, her mother told her to come to Ramjattan Trace.
Edmund said she was always aware that the land did not belong to her.
“In my belief, I dreamt that eventually it would be okay, so I kept that faith but then I started to get more frightened as they (bulldozers) came up closer,” she said, even as her second child played with a puppy in their yard.
She has four mouths to feed. An eight-year-old boy, a two-year-old girl and twins who are four months old.
It’s a daily struggle for the single mother, who is currently unemployed, to feed and care for them all.
“We trying, we don’t have much as a normal family would have, I don’t want to complain much but we need some things.”
Edmund explained that they rely on the benevolence of family members to get by. But even that assistance has its limits.
“It have times when the food will run out, sometimes my church would accommodate me, and some days we would have to do without until better can be done. It does be ticklish, but my son has some understanding, I’ll talk to him as best as I can, sometimes he understands, sometimes he gets grumpy, but he’d just go to bed,” she lamented.
Edmund said she’s honest with her children about their situation.
“You know when your mother have, you all have and when we down, we down together,” she tells them.
There is no pipe-borne water nor electricity. To power the home, Edmund uses a solar panel.
To compound matters, one of her twin babies has a heart condition and recently underwent surgery in India, paid for by the Children’s Life Fund.
Inside her room lay two identical baby beds. Sleeping peacefully were the twins. One, however, was significantly bigger than the other.
With a follow-up surgery due in two months, Edmund is worried that she cannot afford the special baby formula he needs in the interim.
“Sometimes he may have to drink what it have instead of leaving him hungry,” she admitted regretfully.
The daily struggles of providing for her children, while worrying that very soon they could be out on the streets, are taking an emotional toll on the 25-year-old.
“Mentally, sometimes you’ll be all over but you can’t stay in that situation, how will they eat? How will clothes wash? Sometimes you feel like you are in this by yourself, you feel betrayed but I’m at a point now where I just have to stand up and do it.”
She admits that losing her home would feel as if a piece of her heart had been cut out from her body.
The young mother said she’s heard people calling on her and her neighbours to apply for a home through legal means. However, she said it may take years, even decades, before they are successful.
She said the comments made by some on social media about their predicament was hurtful.
Edmund said people are sometimes ignorant of the circumstances that lead people to these situations.
“Some people might comment but they don’t know what you are in. Some people really don’t have and they can’t do anything better. They can’t pay rent or some people may not want to go back to what they were dealing with before,” she said.
While Edmund does not feel entitled to the land, she does question the state’s humanity. “If I have to leave, because it’s not mine and if they say it’s someone’s own, I don’t mind moving but if it’s state land, which is the government’s land and we are Trinidadians, all I’m asking for is some support where I can rest my head and my children’s head. But I don’t have a problem moving because it’s not mine,” she said defiantly.
Edmund said she has applied for social grants but her application has been put on hold because the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services informed her that they are awaiting certain approvals.
With her children to look after, particularly her son with a heart condition, it is difficult for her to find work consistently.
She is accepting assistance in any form - be it with renovating her dilapidated home, food, or anything.
Anyone wishing to help Edmund and her four children can contact her at 385-8038.
