Former national heavyweight boxer Wendell Joseph and his wife Erica were yesterday given keys to a new three-bedroom home at Tarodale, San Fernando, by Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal. Since September, Joseph, 68, and his wife Erica, 56, who is wheelchair-bound, have been protesting while living on cots under a tent in the Queen’s Park Savannah.
Joseph was one of 54 recipients of new homes at a key distribution ceremony at the Housing Development Corporation’s (HDC) head office in Port-of-Spain. HDC’s Managing Director Jearlean John said, “This is the sixth time the HDC has allocated the couple a home. He (Wendell) should be in the Guinness Book of Record. I am just hoping they would go into their new place and be happy.”
Although the couple lived in five other HDC homes, John said, “it was made out as if the HDC was not concerned and we had no empathy, and the folks were just in the savannah sitting down. This is a pattern. We have newspaper clippings from 1995 where they sat right up at the President’s House. We have a whole record on the Josephs. We have done our best. Notwithstanding that, we treated him with respect and the dignity he deserved.”
HDC has spent $50,000 to retrofit the house to accommodate Erica’s disability. Doors were widened, safety rails and ramp installed, toilet and face basin relocated, switches and electrical readjusted, as well as the washroom was redesigned. Asked if the Josephs were to come back to HDC with another complaint, John said, “He (Wendell) might say the rent is too much because in Embacadere they were paying $100 a month.”
Joseph, whose rent is now $800 a month, promised not to move again. “This is it. I am finally going to settle my roots here,” Joseph said.