– opportunists to get the boot

The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) is considering constructing low-cost houses to accommodate those squatters who will be relocated from the government’s reserves, but only those who have been there for several years, Minister in the Ministry of Communities Valerie Patterson has said. New squatters will be given notice to remove.

It was announced last week by Chief Executive Officer of CH&PA Lelon Saul that the entity has plans to develop an area in Industry on the East Coast of Demerara to relocate persons who are squatting along the East-West Front Road, the Tucville embankment, and other areas around Georgetown.

“…We’ve already identified an area where we want to relocate squatters, particularly from Sophia and Ruimveldt areas—but my view is, and I know there are others who share my view—to me it does not make sense to remove a squatter from let’s say Sophia and you give them a piece of land somewhere; they’re going to move the very shack they’re living in to that location. So you’re just transferring a shantytown from one area to the next,” Patterson said on Wednesday.

“My view is, and my intention is, if I am going to relocate a squatter, I must be able to upgrade them in some way or the other. Upgrade their life. And so my belief is that we should be able to have some low-cost houses built, whether… we use self-help, we use whatever. We build the house and then we relocate that squatter… So it will give them a sense of pride, and I think this is what our government is all about,” Patterson said.

The minister stated that they are currently working to get funding through the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to provide low cost homes and remove squatters from the reserves, and it is hoped that they can succeed with this venture by year’s end. She related that other international organisations are being engaged as well.

Patterson acknowledged that many persons have taken up squatting out of frustration and need, noting that there are approximately 25,000 applications in the system and some persons would have applied years ago.

She, however, noted that squatting is illegal and outside of government’s policy, stating that “we will never encourage illegal activities. We’re not going to continue to encourage that, so we have to bring order starting with Georgetown… As a minister responsible for housing, I cannot continue to have or allow that kind of situation to continue in our garden city, we have to bring order, we have to clean it up and we have to really make our city look like one that we’re happy (about) and one that when our visitors come to Guyana they must not see that kind of thing.

Stop this madness

“… But I want to appeal to the people of Guyana, stop this madness related to squatting. Stop taking advice from some rebellious leaders who just want to have conflict and telling people go and take the land and squat, you’re not going to get life easy because we cannot regularize you if you’re on the reserve and then if people just go and take a plot and gone crazy and squatting then when we’re ready to do the survey you’ll find a house is in the path of where a road supposed to go, you have an area that might be set aside for a play area, people squatting there. And let me say this, in some of the communities, people are actually going on those play fields and squat—the fields that are set aside for the children and recreation….”

Advising that persons acquire land the legal way, she said they can go to CH&PA’s regional office, where they can uplift a form at the cost of $200, fill it out, after which they will be in receipt of a slip indicating which documents need to be taken in.

Changed

“In the past when you submit the documents you were told that oh you’ll be called for the interview. That has changed. Once you come in with the application form and your documents, the interview is done immediately and you’re issued with a letter which says to you that you were interviewed and you’re now qualified for a house lot, whether low income, moderate, middle or high income. That now will allow you to have an allocation,” she stated, adding that subsequent to this, you will be called in for an allocation.

She further related that as part of the move to regularize areas, surveys have been done in a number of communities which indicate those who have been squatting and for what length of time. Patterson warned that those who do not fall within this inventory, which was updated as recently as this year, will be served with notices to remove.

“We have done inventory in East and West Ruimveldt and I want to mention particularly John Fernandes squatting area where they call ‘Container City,’ all those areas, Middle Road La Penitence, the sea defence areas along the East Coast, we have done extensively in Region 3 and we’ve done up to Diamond for the East Bank, so we have inventory,” Patterson said.

“And the reason why I mention this is because since we’ve advertised or we mentioned on air that we are going to do this regularization, there has been a mad rush for squatting and overnight, some shacks are being erected. We do not have you on the inventory and you will be served contravention notice to dismantle and if you don’t we will dismantle you. As clear as that. We cannot allow that …if … people continue to go and add more shacks to what are already there, we will never be able to deal with this issue of squatting.”

Last week, it was announced that Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam and Middle Road, La Penitence are two major areas the CH&PA is working to regularize this year.

Lawrence related on Wednesday that most of the people of Angoy’s Avenue have finished paying for their lots and they are currently working with those in Middle Road. Additionally, she stated that they have begun the process of regularizing lots in Crane where there are about 150 squatters, following a meeting she held with residents a few months ago.

While the CH&PA noted last week that it would be working to regularize some areas, it was made clear that squatting would not be condoned in in critical zones.