Residents hemmed in, ask for street
While efforts to put more Belizeans into their own homes continue nationwide, some folks on the south side of Belize City have a different problem–that is, how to get to the homes in which they already live.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
For the past nine years, residents who live behind Police Street in the Lake Independence area have been trying to get a lane constructed which will give them access to the main street. However, all they say they have been getting are broken promises from politicians. Ernest Olivera says two years ago surveyors went into the area and laid down some pegs where the street will be built but he says since then, nothing has happened.
Ernest Olivera, Resident
“As you see this paper right now that I’m showing you here, I never did see the minister come genuinely to me and saw how these people… It’s only Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde sends letter, happy holidays, happy this, happy that. He would come, but he’d only look at one individual house and talk to this one and that one, but this is about everybody. This is not about one individual person, this is about getting the street through, straight through. Get the street working and through, because it was already surveyed. Just like how they can build big schools out there, and this has been here long before…make them go ahead with the street.”
If it was not up to one kind resident, the neighbours say they don’t know how they would have managed getting in and out of their homes. However, their only way out at the moment, is now being fenced and the residents say they need help and help soon.
Ernest Olivera
“From the street side to where I live, you have to pass through about four to five tenant’s yard and it’s not easy, because you don’t know if some one is going to wake up in a bad mood, and you might wake up in a bad mood and feel that it’s right or wrong to pass through a persons yard and the person was just genuine enough to let you pass through their yard, you don’t have to. I feel that the minister should look on this and just try and do some thing hurry before somebody try and get angry with one another and think different and how the neighbours don’t like you. They are genuine enough to let us pass through there, so they must like one another.”
Jacqueline Woods
“So what will happen once that fence has been constructed?”
Ernest Olivera
“Once that fence is constructed, I don’t see a way out. I feel that we need help, quick.”
Emilia Tuyul, Resident
“Sometimes when we have to put some stones and some sand back here and we have to pass it through the lady’s yard and get it back here and pay somebody for the wheelbarrow to put it in. But if we get the street up here, then everything will be alright.”
Jacqueline Woods
“What will happen once you are no longer able to pass through the lady’s yard?”
Emilia Tuyul
“Well we will pass through the guys yard in front of us because there’s a little piece there that we can pass yet. But if the gentleman wants to fence it too, how will we manage? We can’t pass no where else.”
Bernadett Belgrave, Resident
“Well it’s very hard you know because when it rains we have to walk through the mud at the front because it is hard to get in and out at the back. It is very difficult to come to the front because sometimes the bridge and you have to chop the grass. It is very hard to come to the back.”
We could not get in touch with area representative, Minister Cordel Hyde. However one resident told us that Hyde was in the area over the weekend and promised them that he would be sending surveyors into the neighbourhood by the end of the week. Hopefully the street will not be far behind.
