Displaced Coopers Pen residents allegedly told to vacate area

Almost a week after residents of a section of Coopers Pen, Trelawny, were left without homes following a pre-dawn demolition, the uncertainty over where they will go next has deepened.

Some residents told THE STAR that they were instructed by a political representative on Saturday to remove the temporary tents provided by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management and vacate the area.

“Living in the tent was bad and now dem come and say wi need fi leave ASAP, wi need fi take up with tent and go some weh but we need to leave,” Sandy* told the news team. Another resident, whose two-month-old child and babymother are now staying with her mother, said he is still struggling to find somewhere to go.

“Wi just a try. Mi in a tent and it’s bad. The heat is so bad and wi supposed to move the tent but I don’t have anywhere to go,” he said.

Sandy said vacating the area is not the issue, it’s that they have no destination.

“Leave where? Right now it’s about 18 or so approximately here. You have an old lady whose house got demolished. She is now with her kids but everybody else is still here waiting on some form of help,” she said. Efforts to contact the politician who allegedly made the statement were unsuccessful.

Councillor for the Falmouth Division in the Trelawny Municipal Corporation, Garth Wilkinson, told THE STAR that he had heard about the instruction but had not personally witnessed it.

“That’s what I heard but I can’t confirm it but will try to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

Sandy said the tents only offered temporary relief.

“It’s not good, we still don’t have a restroom. We got two little material to put up to build a restroom but by time we fi put up that, them come and say we have to leave,” she said, adding that residents have to be using the half demolished bathroom of a community bar.

“Even that is causing problems because wi affi cuss each other. You know there is water problem and a lot of stuff just causing a lot of problem between we the people because some people use the bathroom and no water,” she said.

New Falmouth Resorts Limited, a brokerage company now with “in removal” status, according to Companies Office of Jamaica records, is the legal owner of the 705-acre property. Wilkinson said it was the wrong decision to place the temporary tents on the same property where the demolitions took place.

“We should have brought the persons to the [Trelawny] stadium or somewhere else and say to them ‘Go there, we will keep you there for a day or two’ and make arrangements for them. But my fight has been for the 99 residents who went to court, fought the hard fight and done what they had to do. That portion of the land, it was never to be occupied,” he said.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has described last Monday’s mass demolition as a “humanitarian crisis”. He said he was surprised when informed of the demolition and immediately ordered state resources to be used to assist the affected residents.

Holness was also unequivocal that the plight of the families should not be interpreted as Government support for the illegal occupation of land.

“Squatting is wrong. Informal settlement is not encouraged,” he said.

Still, he argued that every Jamaican should have an equal opportunity to access land and housing, while acknowledging that the State would have to determine how best to assist the Cooper’s Pen families.

*Name changed to protect identity