The outside doesn’t quite tell the whole story, but behind these rotted walls, there’s a horrible nightmare. Unfortunately there are families, eight of them to be exact, who are living it day in and day out.

According to residents of the government complex on Sibun Street, everything that could go wrong with the building they’ve called home for years, has and they just don’t see an end to their suffering.

Lucretia Myvett, 11 Years Old

“When it rains, water comes into our house and the toilet is breaking down with us and when we use it, it runs through the pipe and wet up down there and make it smell stink.”

Apart from being unsanitary, the entire building is a disaster just waiting to happen. For a structure this big and occupied by so many people, there are only three exits, and the stairs are not in particularly good shape. Then there is the problem of waste disposal. The sewerage system is broken, and according to residents, fixing it is a challenge, since the building has already dropped several inches, snapping some pipes and making others inaccessible.

Shian Ireland, 13 Years Old

“The bathroom di bruk in ‘cos when time you use it, when time you use di bathroom, when you use it, all the thing come through the thing and the whole of back there smell nasty and so, my mother tell us to have patience, but we can’t have patience ina this place ya so ’cause, da wa real terrible place we live ina.”

And that’s putting it lightly. But residents say they’ve made more trips than they care to recall to the office of the Minister of Housing to complain about their plight. It’s been five years, they say, and the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Shian Ireland

“When we go complain ’bout ants nest, like bunch a nests with lone ants and rat, all kinda thing we have to the spray roach and all kinda thing, I no know… I can’t stay ina this place for too long, like I really tired a it.”

And maybe somebody has finally heard their desperate cry for help.

According to Minister of Housing Hubert Elrington, within the next two months, the occupants of the eight apartments housed in this dilapidated building will be relocated to brand new homes within the Lake Independence constituency.

Hubert Elrington, Minister of Housing

“Will be taken down in a little while. In a short while we will take that down.”

Q: “What will happen to the families there?”

Hubert Elrington

“They will be given individual residences. Each of them will get their own home and their own lot.”

Q: “When you say in a short while, what’s a short while?”

Hubert Elrington

“I expect in another two months at the most. No point building long barracks about di place. Let’s give everybody a house that they can live in with their family.”

And if that line sounds familiar to the residents of this building, maybe it’s because it is. One woman we spoke with, who prefers not to appear on camera, says that it was a campaign promise of Minister Elrington prior to the last General Elections. Five years later, the condition of the house has only gotten worse and they are still hearing promises.

Hubert Elrington

“Maybe you have not seen some of the long barracks that we have had to replace. This is the last in a long line of long barracks that we have been replacing. This is a program that has been going on to get rid of all the long barracks that were built under the previous government and to give people proper homes and that is what we are doing right now. That is the last of the long barracks.”