By Petulia Clarke, Staff ReporterFED UP with an escalating crime rate, including two recent rapes, residents of the Portmore Pines community in Greater Portmore, St. Catherine, yesterday voiced their disgust through protest action at the National Housing Trust's (NHT), New Kingston headquarters.
The residents charged that the company had been slow in erecting a long promised perimeter wall to keep hoodlums out of the community.
CONCERN AFTER RAPES
The police were called in to keep watch over the group of about 50 demonstrators who stormed the NHT offices, after two women were raped in the community in the early morning hours over the last two days.
They said the first woman was raped in bushes on her way into the community on Sunday and the last was assaulted in front of her three children after a gunman climbed though her bathroom window Monday morning.
Glenford Hudson, Superintendent in charge of the St. Catherine South Police, confirmed the rape reports and promised increased foot and bicycle patrols in the area, especially around the times the crimes were committed.
UNFINISHED LOTS A PROBLEM
But, while acknowledging the support of the police, president of the citizens association, Andrea Barrett-James, said the presence of bushy or unfinished service lots provided a haven for thieves.
She said that burglaries and robberies were on the increase and the NHT had made promises to erect the wall and bush the lots, but to no avail.
"We were deceived that we would get a gated community and we didn't," Mrs. Barrett-James told The Gleaner. "There's a security risk. We pay our mortgages and everything on time, but we're not getting anything in return," she added.
Portmore Pines, a community bordered by Newlands and Silverstone, was constructed in 1998 and consists of some 600 houses and 200 service lots. It is estimated that about 100 of these lots are still unoccupied.
NHT WILL HELP OUT
NHT's managing director, Earl Samuels, said in a statement that while it was not the NHT's responsibility to build fencing for its schemes, the Trust had previously indicated a willingness to assist in the process by making a $3 million donation. The NHT, he said, is prepared to revise this original commitment, provided that the residents produce a plan for the project, identifying other sour-ces of funding.
He also said that although the responsibility for bushing the unfinished lots was that of the beneficiaries, "out of humanitarian concern for the residents" the Trust is now prepared to bush the lots at a cost to the NHT.
However, future bushing will have to be done by the owners, and the NHT said it is prepared to work with the residents to have them assume the responsibility.
