Leonardo Blair, Enterprise Reporter
ELLIS
IT WAS one morning, some time in the early 1990s. She can't remember well. Sonia Ellis was trembling with her final eviction notice in her hand and she had no place to go.
She couldn't find another landlord who wasn't averse to accommodating her with four children; neither could she afford the rent of the landlords who would. Not with her janitor wages.
As desperation set in and visions of homelessness entered her mind, Sonia visited a friend in Portmore Villas, a former squatter settlement also called 'Lesser Portmore', between the Dyke Road and Christian Pen, in south-east St. Catherine. Sonia saw the houses of the early settlers dotting the savannah; the land looked inviting. She poured out her heart until the friend said: "But see a whole heap a land 'round here so, why you don't come put up something fi yourself? Mi hear say after a while Government plan fi sell it."
There was no need for further encourage-ment. She had already gone over the edge. She decided to join the community, wild-west style.
The day she came to settle the land she found love in a 'likkle young man'. She abandoned initial plans to build her own. 'Likkle young man' was already settled. She simply moved in with her children and eventually married him. Sonia learnt the ways of the land and her neighbours and fought like everyone else when the authorities came to chuck them off. Legal homeowners nearby had started complaining about the living conditions of the settlement. "Them say we were ... (defecating) in scandal bags but that wasn't true," says Sonia.
ANOTHER FIGHT
In the meantime, Sonia was facing personal upheaval. She left the 'likkle young man' a few years later and settled another plot of land for herself.
Not long after her separation, a local female politician gathered the community in a meeting and told them it didn't look like Government was planning to sell the land so they should pack up and go somewhere else. They refused again and started a campaign to retain the land. They got more eviction notices, but they kept vigils and fought off the bulldozers. Government relented. Operation PRIDE soon blessed the land and they soon became legal settlers.
It's two weeks ago. The community is quiet on a windy, sunny day. Squatter shacks have disappeared and beautiful concrete structures are going up slowly. Sonia is supervising the building of her three-bedroom concrete house on her official plot of land. She has been paying a mortgage of just over $3,000 for the last six years. She is 49; her children have grown up.
BUILDING GOOD HOMES
A few houses down the road, community contractor, Lloyd Williams, is building a house - one of five he has worked on in recent years.
"Ah whole heap a development a take place inna the community," says Lloyd. It's tough, he explains, but the people are trying to make life work in the community. Not only have the residents who were once squatters managed to get themselves land, they are building good homes too.
Many have gone back to the National Housing Trust (NHT) for loans to build on their land and many are being approved.
"A lot of these houses that you see finish up is because of Housing Trust," says Williams. "Right now is the contractor feeling it in this community. Housing Trust give them money to build a one-bedroom, but most of them want a two- and three-bedroom out of it, and them getting it. You look around and see if you find any one-bedroom. Nobody moving out of a one-bedroom into a one-bedroom."
