Time is running out for domestic violence victim Shanti Rampersad. The 40-year-old struggling mother of five children and two grandchildren is searching for a place to call home. The one-year lease for Rampersad’s rickety, three-bedroom home at Vega de Oropouche, which she rents, comes to an end today. Rampersad’s landlord is refusing to renew her lease since he is anxiously waiting to start the process of rebuilding a house on the property.
If Rampersad, who single-handedly raises her children—all girls, ranging from 18 to three years—fails to move out, legal action will be taken against her. “I can be thrown out with my belongings at the side of the road,” Rampersad said. For the past three months, Rampersad, who works as a security guard at the Emperor Valley Zoo, Port-of-Spain, has been searching for an apartment or house in Sangre Grande to rent at an affordable price. “But so far I am coming up empty-handed. I am checking the newspapers everyday for a place, but the rent is beyond my reach. Landlords are asking upwards of $3,000 monthly, which I cannot afford.” The family applied for a Housing Development Corporation home several years ago, but is awaiting a response. Rampersad said all she can pay is $2,000 a month to rent a home.
Hooked on alcohol, cocaine
Looking much older than her age, Rampersad admitted that she fled her matrimonial home eight years ago after putting up with years of physical and verbal abuse at the hands of her spouse. “Four times I was admitted to the Sangre Grande Hospital with black and blue eyes and a battered body.”
In the early stages of marriage, Rampersad said her life was filled with happiness. “We had everything going for us. We were one big happy family,” Rampersad recalled, as tears welled in her eyes.
But Rampersad said her life started to go downhill when the father of her children started hanging out with the wrong crowd. “His friends encouraged him to drink rum. From the drinking, he became hooked on cocaine.”
In a bid to maintain his habit, Rampersad said her spouse began stealing items from their Turure, home and selling them. “He sold our clothes, the gas tank, pots, electrical appliances, jewelry, and even the galvanize sheetings that covered the family’s roof.” With three children from the relationship at that time, Rampersad became a punching bag when she started complaining about the missing items. For years, Rampersad said, she put up with the abuse.
However, in December of 2006, Rampersad said she built up enough courage and walked out, despite the fact that she was three months pregnant with her fourth child. She moved into a relative’s home in Guaico as a safe haven and took out a warrant for the children’s father to maintain them financially. But the police were unable to locate him. As a result, Rampersad started collecting $1,300 a month in public assistance for three of the children who attended school.
After the birth of the fourth child, Rampersad said she started a relationship with another man. Soon she was pregnant with her fifth child. But as fate would have it, the second relationship did not last. “When I was seven and a half months pregnant, the father of my unborn child deserted me.”
Rampersad said after giving birth to her last child, she pulled herself together and located a wooden, three-bedroom home in Vega de Oropouche, which the landlord leased to her for four years at $400 a month. “I found myself a job and started to rebuild my life.”
Last November, the lease was renewed for 12 months at a reduced rent of $250 a month as a result of the poor condition of the house. The five years the Rampersads have rented, the family managed without pipe-borne water. There are gaping holes in the wooden floor, while the steps leading to the front door have caved in. The children are forced to relieve themselves in a latrine which is overgrown with grass and infested with insects. They bathe in a makeshift galvanize bathroom.
As Rampersad’s two-year-old granddaughter slept on a bed, flies swarmed her body. Scattered on the floor were broken toys, bits of crumpled paper, and soiled clothes. Rampersad said because of the poor condition of their home, people in the community would ridicule her children. “They would tell the children that they living in a run-down house. To hear people who are better off than us make such comments is dehumanising. I am trying my best, but people trying to bring them down. I know it hurt the children, but there is not much I can do. “My days are numbered here. I have to found a place to live, but I can’t find any to fit my budget.”