Squatting has become a means of land grabbing

Oct 25, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A poor woman from the countryside took every penny that she had saved for over forty years and invested in purchasing a home in a residential district in Georgetown. Her savings were not enough to complete the transaction. She borrowed the remainder of money from the bank to complete the payment for the house.
The woman calculated that if she lived in the upper flat and rented the lower apartment of her new home, this, along with her present earnings, would allow her to satisfy her monthly loan repayments to the bank.
Everything went fine for the first five years. She got a tenant who was willing to pay the rent that she charged because the house was near the city where the jobs were and therefore attracted premium rentals.
Then the poor woman’s problems began. There was a main drainage canal right opposite to where she lived and a government reserve ran along that canal. Squatters invaded the reserve and began to erect shacks on it.
The squatters defecated in utensils and emptied the contents into the canal which soon became overgrown and clogged with weeds because the city council no longer had access to clean the canal since the reserves were occupied by squatters.
The problems got worse. The tenant began to complain about the squalor which was developing in the neighborhood. Then, items began to go missing from the yard. Squatters began to steal electricity and water.
The tenant decided to move. The homeowner was not worried because she felt that she would easily find another tenant. The only problem was that nobody was willing to pay the original rent because the once decent residential area had been reduced to squalor. Crime had increased and the area became insanitary. People were not willing to pay the rent which was being asked.
The once proud homeowner was now faced with the inability to service her loan to the bank. Her property was at risk of being foreclosed.
She decided that rather than lose her property, she would sell it. She figured that she would get enough to pay off her indebtedness to the bank and be able to purchase a property in the village of her birth.
She was wrong. When an evaluator came to value her property, he told her that the value had shrunk because of the squatting. Her house value rather than appreciating with the passage of time, had depreciated. The woman was forced to sell her house. She is now a resident in an old people’s home.
Every time the government moves against squatters, there is a big hue and cry. The squatters claim that they know they are doing something illegal but say that they have nowhere else to go.
Most of those adult persons who are squatting on Government reserves were not all born on those reserves. Most of them came from other areas where they lived in homes.
Squatting has become a means of land grabbing. Occupying reserves in the hope of being regularized is one way in which persons hope that they can be economically empowered.
But this is silly premise because squatting in itself while allowing a few persons to become propertied also decreases the property values of legitimate property owners.
There are persons right now who are protesting in front of the Central Housing and Planning Authority. They are protesting notices sent to them to remove from government reserves. The squatters are asking where the government expects them to go and what is to become of their children.
That is not the government’s problem. It is their problem. They should not have been on the government reserve in the first place.
The government should investigate where the squatters lived before taking up residence on Government reserves. Unless, the squatters can establish that they were born on the reserves, they should not be entitled to alternative housing.
Squatting should not be rewarded. If people are rewarded for squatting what will happen is that this practice will become a ruse for persons who want to grab lands. They will believe that in order to stop their illegal occupation of land, the government will be forced to give them new lands.
The government, however, is not stupid. The government knows that many of them whom they will offer land to will accept the land, sell it and move right back to squatting.
Those who are squatting should be treated humanely. Investigations should be done as to where they came from originally and they should be resettled in those communities.
Squatting affects everyone, not just the squatters.

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