A man walks through a section of Eastern St Andrew squatter community of Mona Commons, while a Gleaner team toured the area last month. Residents want the authorities to regularise their status or relocate them. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photohgrapher

Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

ELDERLY Mr. Wong still keeps the bankbook that he was encouraged to use to deposit money that would help in his relocation from the squatter settlement of Mona Commons, opposite the University Hospital of the West Indies.

He claims to have additional proof of payment for this relocation, for which he and other Mona Commons residents have been waiting since the late Tony Spaulding was Housing Minister in the 1970s. Even as his twilight years approach, this 67-year-old man still has no idea about the future of Mona Commons. He wants to live in a concrete house but cannot risk putting up such a structure, fearing it would be bulldozed if a relocation exercise were to take place.

Ms. Henry, however, will wait no longer. She fast approaches 70 and is not going to live the remainder of her life in a board house. In fact, workmen are busy on the concrete roof of her house, which is being improved. "Is three board house rotten down fi mi already," Ms. Henry tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Mission

Our mission here is to find out what residents in St. Andrew Eastern expect from their next Member of Parliament, as the general election, constitutionally due this year, approaches.

As if they had rehearsed their answers, almost every Mona Commons resident with whom we spoke said the next MP must be someone who is committed to determining their address, one way or another. "Dem need fi stop guh round wi. Wi want fi know if wi a go get fi stay yah so or dem ah go relocate wi," one man tells our news team.

Mona Commons is built on over seven acres of captured lands believed to be owned by the University Hospital. Successive generations have lived on these lands. Government pledged to relocate squatters. Former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson once said that the University Hospital faced decertification as a result of the shanty town opposite it.

His pronouncement then was the clearest indication that Mona Commons residents would not be allowed to stay there. Unsure about their future, only a few dare to put up concrete structures.

In his 2004-2005 Budget presentation, Mr. Patterson told Parliament that the National Housing Trust (NHT) was finalising negotiations for the acquisition of land for the relocation of squatters at Mona Commons. "Planning on the selected site will continue this year," Mr. Patterson said. Those plans were shelved soon afterwards.

Checks by The Sunday Gleaner at the Squatter Management Unit in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands revealed that there are no immediate plans for the relocation of residents or the regularisation of Mona Commons.

No wonder that the people in this section of the constituency say the PNP has failed them.

According to John, an influential member of the community, Mona Commons is not seeking any handouts from politicians. "We don't want any favours; what we want is the opportunity to live with some dignity," he says.

Two sets of persons have previously been relocated from the Mona Commons area. One set was sent to Bull Bay in St. Andrew and another to a section of the St. Andrew Eastern constituency known as Angola.

The remaining 700-plus people in this shanty town say they await word as to whether they too will be relocated. If relocation is no longer an option, they say they want to know so that they can tear down the rusting zinc fences, which shut in their board houses.

Youths blacklisted

If one were to visit Mona Commons now, evidence of a neglected community cries loud. The community, though having access to piped water and electricity, has no street lights, no paved roads and the youths say they have been blacklisted by potential employers because of the criminal stigma attached to Mona Commons.

Similarly, Goldsmith Villa, an Operation Pride project built before the last election, is still without electricity. "All I ask of my next MP is to ensure that electricity comes to the community," one young man says.

While Goldsmith Villa residents gave little indication as to how they would vote, those in Mona Commons had no problem speaking. "The PNP has left Mona Commons residents traumatised. We have always supported them and because they know we are here, they treat us like this," John says.

"Di PNP nuh show wi nuh regard just cause dem know wi always deh yah, but we have dreams to. We want to be able fi walk out a wi house and walk on asphalt an nuh a fi a worry bout mud," reasons one man.

"This community, election after election, vote for the PNP 100 per cent, now it's gonna change. We are tired of them using us like political football," states John.