Patricia Faulkner's apartment in Denham Town - airy, cozy, comfortable. - PHOTO BY LEONARDO BLAIR
'HELL' WAS a place at the bottom of Water Street in Kingston; a place where getting a shower in a public lavatory was often a fiercely-fought battle for decency, where neighbours, if they wished, could 'spite' you over a grouse by ensuring the shower was always occupied when you needed it most; children would frequently break out in strange rashes and your most intimate moments could easily become a public affair.
And 'Hell' was where Patricia Faulkner, 30, lived, until a few months ago when she got lucky. She got up and left as fast as she could, the moment she found out her baby's father was getting a new place in Denham Town.
NEWEST WAVE OF URBAN RENEWAL
The place was one of the new apartments being built by Govern-ment under their $5-billion urban renewal programme. Yes, she was moving up to a third-floor apartment in one of the bright, dusty, orange clusters of apart-ments going up in several of Kingston's inner cities.
Patricia and her neighbours on Denham Town complex are the first to taste this newest wave of urban renewal. In the last few months, she has felt her soul relax for the first time in years. It doesn't matter that around her bright new home is crumbling urban sprawl depicting earlier efforts at urban renewal. She is out of 'Hell' and is glad for her little bit of heaven.
'Heaven' comes with a living room tastefully furnished with family pictures hanging on the wall; a bathroom where she now showers as she pleases; a wash area where she can work even if it rains; separate bedrooms for herself and her son and a private view of Denham Town life and the Kingston Harbour from a simple balcony.
She bashfully opened up her apartment to The Sunday Gleaner last week. It felt like a modest version of the MTV show 'Cribs.' The ceramic tiled floor is immaculately shiny. Patricia wanted her neighbour, Donna Powell, to pose in her apartment for the story, but Donna refused. She wants to pose in her own apartment. Patricia is worried about her hair, but is soon cajoled to get her 'good wig' and do the shoot. She leaves and returns, wig in place, then slumps in her sofa for the interview.
Her son is at school, her 'love' is at work. She speaks slowly and freely.
SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
"Where I used to live, I was dying to move from there. It was hell," she says. Now, "We have we own bathroom, your own toilet and you wash as you wish."
The sentence leaves her lips with a quiet sense of accomplishment. Her son "feels nice." His skin doesn't break out in strange rashes anymore.
Neighbour Donna is happy too. Her apartment is beautiful. She is now working on its charm. There is a sign on her place next door: "Take off your shoes at the door." White light shimmers on her floor. Her good fortune made her the envy of her old community.
"One lady came from foreign and said she wanted to see how the house them stay. When she come inside she say she still in foreign! You can see it fi yourself. Even the door them have the hole that you can peep through when anybody come to you," she says.
SCEPTICAL OF LONGEVITY
Both women pay peppercorn mortgages to the National Housing Trust (NHT); just a little over $3,000 per month on still flexible terms. "I pay $3,200 every month. It's to be paid the first of the month. If you don't have it the first of the month, they (NHT) told us we should call them and let them know when you can come in with it."
The Denham Town police are happy about the urban renewal too, but some have seen it happen before and are sceptical of 'heaven's' longevity.
"It is a step in the right direction (for the Government)," said Superintendent Delroy Hewitt of the Denham Town police. "Getting rid of some of the zinc fences and so on will make these communities easier to patrol for us. We believe that social decay is a contributor to crime and violence. When you give people a new lease on life they look at life in a different way," said the Superintendent. "It is very timely and what we are glad about is that these houses have been equitably distributed across communities traditionally linked to both political parties."
Detective Sergeant Adison of the Denham Town Station also agrees with that the new development is a step in the right direction but warns that it will take a lot more than new houses to graft the new sub-culture of better living in these inner cities.
"Just look at communities like Rema, Trench Town and Arnett Gardens, even sections of Denham Town here, it was the same sort of thing that happened. They built new houses and what happened?"
The NHT is funding the construction of the inexpensive new housing solutions in inner city communities. Some 3,000 are expected to be completed under the urban renewal programme.
In 2003, then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said the plan is aimed at transforming decrepit inner city neighbourhoods and making them decent communities for their residents. The low-cost housing model, which was adopted from Malaysia under a technical agreement, has been modified to meet Jamaica's national building code. Mr. Patterson had said that the core unit would be a four-storey walk-up structure containing three bedrooms and a living room area. Also, there would be a two-bedroom unit for a smaller family. Each block will contain 48 residences. The housing blocks he had explained would have green areas, safe playgrounds, sporting facilities and even swimming pools in some of the communities.
- L.B.
