HER PLIGHT was first highlighted just short of a month ago in the June 22 edition of the MIDWEEK NATION.
And yesterday, as 82-year-old Jenny Wooding turned the key to her new three-bedroom home, the elderly woman could barely hold back the tears.With hands raised to the sky, an emotional Wooding belied her age as she jumped for joy, danced and shouted words of praise.
“Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus,” she said.
It was just around 3:30 p.m. when a team from the National Housing Corporation, headed by Minister of Housing Michael Lashley, arrived at her old home at First Avenue, Deane’s Village, and plucked her away from her deplorable living conditions.
Half an hour later her reality changed. No longer would she be living in a house with a leaky roof, rotten floorboards and a rickety outside toilet. Her new home at Barbarees Hill, St Michael, less than ten minutes’ drive from her former ramshackle dwelling, came fully furnished and with bright, spacious walls and sparkling white tiles.
Wooding felt she was in heaven! After rolling around on her brand new bed, it was time for her to play with her gadgets. Wooding, who had grown accustomed to carrying water on her head from a nearby standpipe and taking an outdoor shower when she could, now had the luxury of an indoor bathroom. She excitedly turned on the pipe to test the water in her indoor shower before opening the fridge and turning the knob of her first-ever television set.
“Thank you, Jesus!” was her refrain once more.
“I also want to thank THE NATION newspaper and you young [Anesta Henry] girl for helping me,” she said.
The former agricultural worker, who has no family to call on, admitted she would miss her neighbours in the village, especially long-standing friend 93-year-old Gwendolyn Jones, but was glad to see the back of former landlord Earl Wilkinson.
She recalled her last visit from him on Sunday to collect her outstanding $5 in rent. The landlord had apparently read about her pending departure in the SATURDAY SUN.
“He come for rent and I tell he I ain’t got none. I tell he not one cent . . . . I tell he I soon left from here and he clear out,” she said. Minister Lashley was elated to disclose that the senior citizen would enjoy free living for the rest of her life and that the State would take care of her utility bills. He also pointed out that contributions had come from corporate Barbados, as well as from countless kind-hearted individuals.
Lashley said based on this overwhelming show of public support “she is probably going to end up with three fridges and two stoves”.
