Trinidad: Family of 10 seeks a home for Christmas

SOURCE: Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

As Christ­mas ap­proach­es, a La Brea fam­i­ly’s main con­cern is not food, dec­o­ra­tions or presents, but that they may not have a home for Christ­mas.

Days ago, the back area of their home at Sobo Boodoos­ingh Road, Charles Street, crum­bled, de­stroy­ing three bed­rooms.

Now, the fam­i­ly of ten, in­clud­ing three young chil­dren, ages sev­en months, 11 months and two-years-old, is fear­ful that their home will con­tin­ue to fall apart, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to its en­tire de­struc­tion.

Speak­ing on be­half of the fam­i­ly, Don­na Moonas­sar said her step­fa­ther Roshan Mo­hammed, 53, her four broth­ers, two sis­ters and the chil­dren live in the house.

Moonas­sar, who lives next door, said about three weeks ago, they be­gan hear­ing nois­es and pieces of the house be­gan break­ing off.

She said her step­fa­ther aban­doned a bed­room on the ground floor, while her sib­lings moved out of the two back bed­rooms on the up­per lev­el.

For­tu­nate­ly, no one was in those rooms when they crum­bled last week.

“It was ter­ri­ble,” she re­called.

“Every­body was asleep, I was sleep­ing in an apart­ment over there and my broth­er and them was sleep­ing over here and all of a sud­den they heard some­thing fall and when they run out, is this whole back piece gone.”

She said they have now been forced to hud­dle in three bed­rooms to the front of the house.

“Right now, they have nowhere re­al­ly to be sleep­ing and thing, so every­body have to fit up like sar­dine,” she lament­ed.

She ex­plained that her step­fa­ther built the house 20 years ago, but it was still un­der ren­o­va­tions. How­ev­er, she said her step­fa­ther is now a heart pa­tient and nei­ther he nor her broth­ers or sis­ters have any per­ma­nent jobs.

Fear­ful that the house will con­tin­ue to crum­ble, she said, “It’s just a mat­ter of when the whole house from the front to the back goes be­cause once the back go­ing, it will pull the whole front.”

Not­ing that for the past five years, they have been hav­ing an is­sue with a wa­ter leak on the road, she claimed the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) fixed it twice but since last year, it has been leak­ing again.

While she has no proof that the leak is caus­ing the land move­ment, Moonas­sar wants WASA to per­ma­nent­ly re­pair the leak and in­ves­ti­gate whether they are at fault. If WASA is re­spon­si­ble, she wants them to com­pen­sate her fam­i­ly.

In any event, she said her fam­i­ly needs help to sta­bilise and re­build their home. Any­one will­ing to as­sist can con­tact Moonas­sar at 268-1899.

At­tempts to get a re­sponse from WASA were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

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