“I AM NO USE to [my children] now. I cannot deal with it no more. If I cannot get help, I will kill myself and leave them for you all to take care of,” cried Maria Preville.
Preville, of Vine Street, Nelson Street, Bridgetown, was pleading for help yesterday.
“I just need a house for me and the children, and a job.
“I went to so many places but nothing, but I can do maid work, cleaning, housework, in a fish market, but I just want a job,” she said.
Preville’s home was demolished four months ago, leaving her and her two school-aged children homeless. The 48-year-old mother of three had lost her right to stay on the spot after nine years. Having been given notice to remove the house from the spot, she could find no alternative place and the house was dismantled last June.
“I work hard to build that house; I work building that prison and in no time the house gone. I work too hard for that house for it to be gone just so and I am living on the streets,” Preville lamented.
She said that before the house was dismantled she went to the National Housing Corporation about a spot on which to put the house. She met with no success. The children are living at two separate houses but Preville has been lodging at different residences over the past months.
Preville said she wanted a house because after her former dwelling was dismantled the lumber was stolen.
The children, aged 12 and 13, have not been able to attend classes at school since they have no books, Preville said, adding that they had to sit in the school hall because they were not allowed to enter their classrooms.
Preville said the children’s father had a stroke and had taken to going over to the roundabout opposite the Globe Cinema and begging for money.
The frustrated woman said she went to the Welfare Department and got a food voucher for $80 but when she went back she was told she could not get anything more because she was not a Barbadian.
“The children are Barbadian and I am a resident.
I have been living here for 24 years. I am legal and I even voted in the election. At Mr [Patrick] Todd [constituency] office they say they are dealing with Barbadian citizens first,” Preville said.
Vine Street residents expressed concern about Preville’s condition, saying that even though they sometimes tried to assist, more needed to be done.
(LK)
