THOUGH the Ministry of Housing is making every effort to regularise some squatting areas across the city, subject Minister Valarie Patterson is cautioning those bent on squatting to desist from so doing.
In an interview on Wednesday, Patterson made it clear that the government has zero tolerance for those who believe they have a right to squat. While the minister accepted that many persons have squatted due to unfortunate circumstances, she made it clear that there are others who are gaining financially from the activity.
“Squatting is illegal and does not fit into Government’s housing policy; we will never encourage illegal activities,” she said, adding: “Sitting here as minister the amount of stories that came to me, and some of them are very touching. There was a need in some cases for some people to get some place to live, so I believe that out of that kind of desperation some went into it. However, some went into it as a business; they just go, take the land, rent it, build a little land and rent it. Some of them legally own house lots; they rent that and go squatting. We are not to continue to encourage that.”
Minister Patterson stressed that her ministry is attempting to bring order to the city: “This is our capital and any one going into areas like Sophia would be very unhappy with what they see. As the minister responsible for housing, I cannot continue to have or allow that kind of situation to continue in our garden city, we have to clean it up. We have to really let our city look like one that we are happy to be in… when our visitors come they must not see that kind of thing.”

Meanwhile, the Housing Minister said too that government is working along with international agencies such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to provide low-cost homes to squatters who will be removed from the city’s reserves. She anticipates that negotiations in this vein will conclude at the end of the year. “Even at Government level, we have already identified an area where we want to relocate squatters particularly from Sophia, La Penitence and Ruimveldt. My view is, it does not make sense to remove a squatter from Sophia and place them somewhere [without providing a home], they are going to move the very shack they are living in to the very location.

“You’d be just transferring a shanty town from one area to the next. My view and intention is if I am going to relocate a squatter, I must be able to upgrade them.” Patterson noted that even if through self-help, low-cost houses can be built before squatters are relocated. She believes that giving squatters a sense of decency is very important as many of them have children. “It will take some time, people have to be patient with us, we don’t have a money tree that we can go and shake.”

Thus far, the Ministry of Communities, Department of Housing, has done a number of surveys in the communities of Sophia, East and West Ruimveldt, John Fernandes Squatting Area commonly called Container City, Middle Road La Penitence and along the sea defence areas on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD). Surveys have also been done in Region Three and as far as Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD).
“Since we have advertised that we are doing regularisation, there has been a mad rush for squatting; overnight shacks are being erected. We do not have you on the inventory and you will be served to dismantle, and if you don’t, we will dismantle you. We cannot allow it,” the minister added.
At the moment, Angoys Avenue, New Amsterdam, is being regularised with more than 1000 houselots being assigned. The minister disclosed that most of the residents of that community have completed payments for their houselots. Work is currently ongoing in Middle Road, La Penitence, where there are 309 households; in Region Three, the railway embankment, where there are approximately 300 families and Crane,West Coast Demerara, where there are about 150 squatters.

Upon the completion of surveys, the Ministry of Housing invites squatters to purchase an application form for $200, fill it out and in some cases, staff from the ministry are sent to the respective communities to conduct the interviews. “I want to appeal to the people of Guyana to stop this madness related to squatting. Stop taking advice from rebellious leaders who just want [to] create confusion; you are not going to get life easy, because we cannot regualrise you if you are on the reserve,” stressed Patterson. In the case of other applicants, the ministry is noting that once an application form is filled, applicants must return with all documentation. Upon their return, the applicants will be interviewed and will qualify for one of the four categories of lots (low, moderate, middle or high). However, Patterson has urged that applicants be patient as there are approximately 25,000 applications in the system and as fast as lots are allocated, more applications are being submitted by persons.