Living under tent, Erica Joseph begs for housing again

AFTER six months living under a tent on Harris Promenade, San Fernando, double amputee Erica Joseph wailed and beat her chest with her fist saying she wanted to die rather than live as a vagrant in the country of her birth.

Present were San Fernando mayor Junia Regrello and officials from the Social Displacement Unit of the Ministry of Social Development, the South West Regional Health Authority, the public health department and municipal police officers. They were assessing the homeless situation in San Fernando.

Joseph clasped her hands in prayer saying she was tired of suffering, questioning what she had done wrong to deserve this kind of treatment.

Well known for pitching similar tents at the Queen’s Park Savannah opposite President’s House, on the Brian Lara Promenade, and now in San Fernando with her husband former boxing champ Wendell Joseph to bring attention to their homeless situation, said she was dying and wanted to die with some dignity.

She said she was in dire need of surgery but first wanted a Housing Development Corporation (HDC) apartment where she could recuperate after the operation

June Beckles, field officer from the social displacement unit tried to calm her, saying they were there to help and that arrangements had been made with the Mt Hope hospital to have the surgery done. Beckles, however, could not guarantee housing accommodation.

She reminded Joseph that she had spoken to her before in Port of Spain, to which Joseph replied, “I know darling and you couldn’t do nothing then. You giving me a house today?”

Beckles said Social Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis would speak with Housing Minister Edmund Dillon on the matter.

The Josephs have been recipients of several HDC units over the past two decades, but had issues with each one. At the handing over of the last one at Charford Court in Port of Spain in 2017, Joseph said she was satisfied with the ground floor unit which was being retrofitted for her wheelchair.

“They (HDC) tell us they were fixing the apartment but they did nothing and then they come and tell us we have to leave because here not suitable for the wheelchair.

“If all yuh know that, why all yuh move me from the Savannah?”

She refused subsequent alternative accommodations which, she said, were on higher levels she could not access with her wheelchair.

“Why all you putting me on a fourth floor with no foot. I was living in HDC and I used to pay my rent. Right now I have reached the limit. I just want to go. I just want to die. I don’t want to live like this anymore.

“I suffering in TT. Please somebody take me in your country. I would leave here and go and hold on to a white man foot and be his slave rather than to be a vagrant in my own country."