Woman evicted from home, new Minister provides shelter
Today News Five received a call from a concerned citizen saying a woman and her children were being evicted from their house in Lake Independence. When we got to the scene we found out this was not simply a case of someone not paying the rent.
This afternoon residents from Lake Independence watched in dismay as one of their neighbors, Claudette Miller and her four young children were evicted from number six Oleander Street.
Claudette Miller
“I didn’t think that the police will come and drag me out in big day like this. I even tell them give me some time like later in the evening and they said, they can’t wait that long. They got the warrant and they have to do their job and I am really upset about it cause they could have at least given me until the end of the month.”
According to Miller, three years ago Florentino Azueta rented the house to her for one hundred and fifty dollars even though he apparently has been renting the premises from the Ministry of Housing for only seventy-one dollars a month. Miller says the problem started early last year, when her sister, who lives in the States and who was the one paying the rent, refused to give the landlord any more money until he had repaired the house.
Claudette Miller
“Since we have been living here they no fix nothing on the house. The house leak; when I tell them that the house need to be fix they no bother at all, they just left it right so. I tell them that the sewerage want fix cause the sewerage can’t flush, cause you have to throw water in the sewerage to let it flush. They no do nothing with it. Anyway, they still want to collect the same amount of money: the hundred and fifty dollars.
I talk to the people at Housing and Planning and they told me that the house was only supposed to be seventy-one. So I told them how could they have charged me so much when they were only paying seventy-one and they do not want to fix the house. They say that all they need was the money.
So my sister called them from States and told them that either they reduced the rate or they try fix the place and they refused to do that. So she told them that she would not send the money because they want all the amount from we and they do not want to fix the house and they no want do anything to it but they want to collect the same amount of money.”
Miller says she could not afford to pay the rent herself since her husband is in jail and she had been laid off from her job. The only money she is making is twenty-five dollars a week for cleaning her church building and the ten dollars she collects every week from social services. Nevertheless, Miller says she was taken to court where a Judge McKenzie ordered that in three months time she should move out.
Claudette Miller
“On the paper that Ms. McKenzie signed it was the thirtieth of December but I went to see her before the thirtieth of December and she told me that she would extend the time until the end of January 99. Because I told her that I already got the land but I need to the house to go on the land. And she said okay, I will extend the time for you until the end of January.”
Whether Judge McKenzie did extend the time, we could not reach her for comment, but according to Miller it was Judge Sharon Frazer who signed the letter the police showed her this afternoon.
Claudette Miller
“We hear a knocking at the door and I see two police officers and Mr. Azueta son. I don’t know his name and they tell me that they have a warrant for me to come out of the house, so I tell them who sign the warrant. They say Ms. Frazer, Judge Frazer so I told them that it was not Judge Frazer who tried the case it was Judge McKenzie.
So they said that they have to do their job and I have to come out now. I started to carry some of the things but according to the police I was moving too slow so they begin to help me and they started to take the things out of the house and Mr. Azueta son start to take out the things too.”
But while at first it seemed as if Miller and her children would be spending the night outdoors, help did come to the distraught family when we were visiting her. According to Cardinal Usher, an assistant to Lake I Area Representative, Cordel Hyde, the Minister will allow Miller and her family to stay in the division’s center tonight and then tomorrow morning will supply them with a mobile home.
Usher also told News Five that he is concerned about the situation of people subletting homes that they have acquired from the Ministry of Housing and he will be informing Minister Dickie Bradley about the matter. The mobile home being supplied by the Ministry will be placed on a piece of land Claudette Miller has leased. Catalina Azueta, the landlord’s wife, told News Five they never rented the house to Claudette Miller, but to her mother who is now deceased on the understanding that the Azueta family would be moving back into it. According to Azueta, after Claudette’s mother died they told her they would be taking back the house. However, she says they received a letter last July from the then Minister of Housing Hubert Elrington saying they were to give the house to Miller who was an employee of the Ministry. Azueta says she and her husband took the matter to court, not only to try and hold onto the house but to have Miller evicted because she had not paid rent in over a year. She says Minister Elrington was aware they were charging one hundred and fifty dollars a month rent, which is over the seventy-one dollars stipulated in the original agreement made with the government in 1981. As for repairs, the Azuetas claim they did work on the house at least three times, but that Miller did not take care of it.
