Squatters evicted at mile 8
It’s a familiar story: people with no place to live pick a piece of unoccupied land, throw up a rough dwelling, defy orders to leave and ignore threats of legal action. Time goes by, the law moves in, and–depending on whether an election is upcoming or just past–the squatters are either accommodated or evicted. Given that pattern, what happened today was hardly a surprise.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The scene was not pleasant, around a dozen families evicted from their homes near mile eight on the Western Highway. The squatters had ignored several notices to move off the land that they had illegally occupied for as long as two years. The families, mostly Central American migrants, admit that they had been told to leave, but said because they had nowhere to go they decided to stay…until government can assist them to relocate onto another piece of land.
Salvador Garay, Evicted Resident
“We done tell them that we agreed to move, we noh want to stay and fight for this piece of land here. We agree to move if they help us out and give us another piece of land and they give us more time too, because watch how they just come this morning and immediately move, that noh correct.”
The police explained to the residents that they were carrying out the eviction order, they had no choice but to enforce the court’s decision. The families maintain they have no place to go and will most likely be camping out on the roadside. One of the residents, Salvador Garay, had not only built his home on the land, but even opened a shop.
Salvador Garay
“We want them to find a piece of land fi we, because then we have to stay on the street tonight and we have young baby, five months, we gah young baby. We have to stay on the street and then if it rains, what we wah do, all our things will get wet up too.”
Garay, who has been living on the land for two years, says it was not until a year ago that the families were told they had to leave because the land was sold by government to one Ricardo Castillo, to be used for a housing project initiated by Pickstock area representative, Godfrey Smith.
Salvador Garay
“From the time when we start to build the house, he should have come around and say unu can’t build on the land because dah private. But no, he wait until everybody done establish, done live, done spend their money. We even gone dah bank, we make a loan for the lee shop, how we wah pay that back? Till we done do that, establish and thing, then he come and give we the notice, and that noh right. If dah mi private, why he never tell we before.”
Smith says the residents were repeatedly told that they had unlawfully settled on land that was entrusted to the Pickstock Division and that the families had to move. Smith says because there is no more land available in his division, he purchased the twenty-five acre property so it could be used for a Pickstock housing subdivision project. The land was then placed in the name of the project chairman Ricardo Castillo.
Godfrey Smith, Area Representative, Pickstock
“It will be subdivided into a hundred separate parcels. So far, fifty have been surveyed and marked with pegs for distribution. This was done in June of last year at which time we informed the people who were unlawfully squatting there that they were squatting on private lands that were being prepared for the people of the Pickstock division. They did not take that very seriously, and in fact went so far as to retain a lawyer and took us to court. This matter came on for hearing sometime in February, January of this year and the court eventually ruled against them because they had no legal claim to the land.
“Thereafter having succeeded in the court case against these unlawful squatters, we said to them, look we know it will take you sometime to find somewhere else to go, we are giving you three months; that was February of this year. We are now in July, meaning five months has passed. Not that, not only has time passed, but more people by slow degrees are going onto this land, so it completely frustrates the project that we have in mind for the people of Pickstock Division.”
Four families who have made a substantial investment on the land did end up buying their piece of property and will remain at the location. Smith says if they allow all the squatters to stay on the land it will defeat what they are trying to accomplish for the people of Pickstock.
