City’s poor live in condemned houses
We’ve all got a mental picture of our dream house, that home we will build when we get our land, and enough money. But what if you are so poor your house is a nightmare, a structure that is just waiting to collapse around your ears. As News Five found out some Belize City folk are desperate for housing, and don’t know where to turn for help.
They are all over Belize City: buildings that are so aged and dilapidated they could collapse at any minute. But while they are merely an eyesore to most of us, for some unfortunate people, these buildings are the only place they can afford to call home.
Micheal Jex, Tenant
“Living in this condition is very horrible; you know it could be very frustrating, very depressing sometimes. Because I mean we are living in a place, you have a family to take care of that are looking up to you and you don’t have any convenience in the place. No light, No toilet, no water, no bathhouse; it is very, very, very difficult.”
Although the Ministry of Housing has embarked on a project to provide affordable housing, many Belizeans are encountering difficulties when they try to apply for the program, and some simply can’t afford the minimum rent.
Michael Jex
“I am living like this not because I want, because the salary I am earning. I try to get a place to rent but my salary is too small.”
Last month, the Gladden Family of Fredrick Street barely escaped serious injuries after their old wooden house finally gave way and fell to the ground. While the family has received some government help to find a place to rent, the same disaster faces their next door neighbor Vincent Buller. Buller, who says she was a victim of a fire victim on Fredrick Street in 1993, made the decision to move under this three-story wooden building two months ago.
Vincent Buller, Homeless
“So I decided well I do not want to live around my children because they have their own man and thing and so I come underneath here one night. I used to be over that yard with my sister them, but rain caught me and so I came underneath here and a young lady gave me that seat and so I use it to sleep in.”
Buller, who lives with her son, says at nighttime things can get really rough. She says no matter what anyone may think of her, no one deserves to live this way.
Vincent Buller
“When my granny raise me, my granny raise me in a little thing like from here to there. Only one stove, one table and my grandmother slept on the floor. From there I start working at Saldivar’s Bakery and from right there I went to All Saints School. And gradually well, I have my baby daddy and he left me and went to America. So I am grandma, granddad everything in one with my eight kids.”
The building, which has been condemned, also has a family living inside, on the first floor. On the other side of town, another family is trying to hold onto a cement home they received from Recondev. Kathleen Flowers says after she was retrenched, her husband died and she could no longer afford to pay the rent of two hundred and seventy five dollars. She is scared to move back into their wooden house because any day it too can come down.
Kathleen Flowers, Tenant
“It is hard; it is hard. It is hard because you no have no way to turn and that is hard.”
Kathleen Flowers
“The last money I paid was in ’95 and I did try to pay but we can’t. We can’t make it so I don’t know, I don’t know. They want we all pool together. We try it and we can’t make it still yet. We try, we try it to see how we can still put a little together but we can’t make it.”
Most of the people we spoke to say they do not know what assistance is available. As we found out, the Human Development Department is able to help only a few in emergency situations such as a collapsed house find a place to rent. The Ministry of Housing is urging homeowners, especially landlords, to make repairs or stop renting buildings that are no longer livable. Minister of Housing Dickie Bradley says so far fifty-one houses deemed unsafe have been demolished. The Ministry of Human Development is currently conducting a survey of the city to determine the number of homeless people and why they are living on the street or squatting in condemned buildings. The information will be used to develop assistance programs.
