PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – Community activist and civil engineer Omar Ottley on Monday lamented over the thought of 40 families being made homeless and called on government to step in before November 30 to prevent this from happening.
He explained that after Hurricane Irma these families were fortunate to receive assistance and live in the shelter in Suckergarden. “The shelter was a temporary solution until spacing in government housing was available for them. It has been two years and no government house has been delivered and these persons unfortunately have 5 days to vacate the property,” Ottley said.
He added that the owner of the property has the right to do as they please once the contract is up, “but the responsibility of these families, which also included children from 2 to 5 years of age, falls on the government of St. Maarten.”
He said the Doc J Foundation raised funds to fix the eight emergency homes in Cole Bay that fall under the St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation (SMHDF) to house some of the families, while persons who were housed at the same location before the hurricane, moved back to Belvedere. This freed up three 3-bedroom homes.
“Dutch law prohibits boys and girls to share a room. So they put a video out on social media asking for assistance to fix these homes in Cole Bay. The video attracted the attention of World Bank who asked why would donations be sought when it had already made 550 thousand guilders available to the St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation (SMHDF) to repair the homes,” Ottley explained
He continued: “After some back and forth the SMHDF has reportedly now pulled back its decision to offer the homes to the families and the families have to leave the shelter on Nov 30th.This is a main example of the real issues being neglected in our country. All these people are about to be homeless and we have yet to hear anyone speak on it.”
“I would like government to know that it is a constitutional right to protect these young kids. So please step in before November 30th,” Ottley concluded.
