Rio Claro family seeks help to build a home

ON the verge of homelessness, a pregnant Rio Claro woman and her husband are appealing for the public's help to construct a home for them and their three young children.

Alyssa Ramos, 30, said her family has been living in a small wooden house belonging to her brother for about a year and a half as they were unable to pay rent for the apartment they lived in when her husband stopped getting jobs.

Ramos said her husband, Shevon Joseph, has been trying to find work without success and most days, she barely has anything to feed her children: Ricardo, ten, Yelena, three and Shevon Junior, one-year-old. Ramos will give birth to her fourth child in October.

She said her brother told her to leave about two weeks ago.

“For right now, we are still in my brother’s house, we still have some stuff to pack up but the thing about it is we have nowhere to go,” she said. “He (brother) had given me here to stay when we couldn’t make to pay rent anymore and now he said he wants his place back so we have to leave. Two weeks now he put us out but where I will go? I don’t know what to do. I can’t carry my children to sleep outside.”

She said she has been looking into rental properties but with Joseph having difficulty to get a job she does not believe renting is an option.

“Even if we get a place, how we would pay the rent? Most days we just make out, if someone gives my husband a day work, he buys food and we just try our best to make it last.”

Joseph, 34, said he was last permanently employed at a furniture manufacturing plant in Caroni in 2016. But he said unfairness at the job caused him to walk away and he began working in construction.

Eventually he began selling hot peppers at a roadside stall to feed his family.

“I was trying anything I could but police started to crack down on roadside vendors and I was one of those people so they shut me down,” Joseph said.

The couple say they have a piece of land where they can build a small home but they need a "start."

“All I want is a little start, we really in need right now and I would always be grateful for any material we could get,” Ramos said.

She said she is unsure how long her family has left in her brother’s house and she is praying that when they leave, they won’t have to sleep outside.

If you would like to assist the family, you can contact them at 318-4973.