Living in limbo!

PETERSFIELD, Westmoreland — One year after Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Westmoreland, leaving dozens of families homeless, several displaced residents remain stuck in an emergency shelter with growing frustration over delayed relief. Among them are more than a dozen people — mostly families — currently housed in the teacher’s cottage at Petersfield High School. They were relocated to the structure after initially being sheltered in the main school building. According to Velecia Ewen, a displaced resident from Pullet Lane, those staying at the shelter are desperate to move forward. “All we want is just the key [to the promised container house]. We don’t want anything more than to go back to our life,” Ewen told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday while describing her ordeal of living in a shelter a year after the disaster. According to Ewen, residents were moved from the school’s main building with the impression that the relocation to the teacher’s cottage would be brief. “They move us and put us over here for six weeks, and six weeks becomes many months now,” said Ewen as she claimed they were told in May that the stay would last only two to four weeks.

Shelteree Velecia Ewen shows the two mattresses on the floor that her family of five sleeps on in the Petersfield High School teachers’ cottage. (Photo: Anthony Lewis)

She expressed deep frustration over a lack of communication regarding the container homes being erected near the Shrewsbury Housing Scheme. “We have no idea when it will finish. Nobody nah come say nothing to we. Nobody nah talk to we,” stated Ewen. Another shelteree, who did not give her name, added, “We don’t know anything more than to sit down and get up every day and go and look.” Ewen, who has visited the site, argued that progress on the container houses appears stalled. “Just the container house they put down, and when I peep in one, when the first set was put up, they only put in the bathroom fixtures, nothing more. Another time we go, I see them making some sewage [system]. No move from that,” Ewen charged.

Sixty-seven-year-old Pauline Williams, who is diabetic and hypertensive, sitting outside the Petersfield High School teachers’ cottage which has been her shelter for months. (Photo: Anthony Lewis)

She said life inside the teacher’s cottage remains fraught with financial strain and inadequate provisions. Ewen also claimed that essential supplies have dwindled significantly, noting that drinking water is severely rationed. “One case of water serves for me and my mother, my other two sisters, and my son. So the one case of water split for the five of us. And for the next three weeks or to a month before the next case comes back here,” she stated. Ewen told the Observer that apart from rationed water and meals, which she often finds unpalatable, official relief has been virtually non-existent. “The Government has done nothing for us since the storm, nothing. I don’t know who [they have] done something for who is living at the shelter, but I can testify for myself. The only thing I have received is from people, private people who come and they have little pity on us, and they gave us something, and we’re really grateful for it. But nothing from the Government until this day,” Ewen claimed. She said despite crowded sleeping conditions and poor surroundings, she maintains hope. “You have to just hold out, because God is on time. You have to just look the way you have to look, because it already sets up that way. You just have to have a positive mind and just hope for the best and hope that somebody will come and something will happen,” stated Ewen” Meanwhile, 67-year-old Pauline Williams, who is diabetic and hypertensive, was forced out of her destroyed house in Piper’s Corner, Petersfield, when Melissa ravaged the community. Williams, who earns a living doing domestic work, supported Ewen’s claim about the poor quality and inconsistency of the food provided in the shelter. “We get a little rice or bread with sausage, but no tea. Yesterday morning, no breakfast came until today. Then tonight, we got a little rice, but you can’t eat it and we don’t have anyone to give us 10 cents to buy anything,” said Williams. “Right now, I just want a stove and two pots so we can cook our own food,” declared Williams.