Mother faces eviction; landlord and Welfare Department differ on reason payment ended 

A 30-year-old mother of two is at her wit’s end as she and her family face eviction from the rented house they have occupied for the past three years in St Philip.

Shekenria Howell is lamenting that the Welfare Department had stopped paying its $550 portion of her $800 rent during a time when she was jobless. However, Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey on Wednesday said payment ceased because of concerns about the condition of the rented property.

“I received an eviction notice earlier this month…. The deadline was the 6th of this month…then the landlady called and said she wanted the keys,” said Howell who started a new job earlier this month, working three days a week.

“She said she was going to take it to court to let the court deal with it. But I don’t want to have to go through that process. I just want to be out and be at peace,” the emotional mother of a four-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter told Barbados TODAY.

Highlighting that she has no alternative accommodation, the woman explained that her arrears had been piling up from December last year, when she did not have a job, and now stood at $2 250.

“My part was $250 and the Welfare was $550. The Welfare stopped paying from May 31 this year but I receive the letter informing me in June or July,” Howell explained, saying that the three days of work per week she recently got could not cover all her expenses, including rent, food and bills.

“I don’t know what to do,” she lamented.

Asked why the Welfare Department had stopped its payments, the distraught woman replied: “I have not a clue. I spoke to the Welfare Officer [assigned to her]. I would have also spoken to her superior who was supposed to get back to me who has not yet gotten back to me on anything…no back-to-school assistance…anything,” she said.

However, Minister Humphrey, who received a report from the Welfare Officer who was handling Howell’s situation, reported to Barbados TODAY that “the landlord has given her eviction because the client and her partner have destroyed the property”.

“We have made all our payments. The landlord was adamant that she will not take any more money from the department. [We have] no outstanding monies,” he insisted.

When Barbados TODAY reached out to Howell’s landlady, who spoke on condition of anonymity, she admitted to serving Howell with an eviction notice but painted a different picture of what led to that decision.

“On my part, it is a simple matter of no rent being paid for the house. The Welfare Department was helping her at one time, but they have stopped. So it is a matter of no rent being paid. The water bill I am paying without any rent. The house was handed over in good condition in 2020…. It now needs a number of repairs on the inside,” she said.

“I am retired, I am a widow, I cannot carry that burden. I can’t have a house where I am paying for the water and everything and I am receiving absolutely nothing.”

She said the last contract with the Welfare Department ended in April “and nothing has been paid since”.

Asked about the next step, the retiree said: “I have given her notice to quit, and the time has expired, and I have put it in the hands of my lawyer…. That is after months of rent not being paid.”

She pointed out that before serving Howell with the eviction notice, she had spoken to her about non-payment of rent.

“I would have…reminded her since December of 2022 that there were arrears that had to be paid. I told her earlier on that she would need to find someplace because it just can’t be done. Landlords are often given bad names, but a house costs money to build and you have to maintain it or else you have nothing…and you have to pay the water, because no matter what, when the person leaves, if you want water, you have to pay their bill. I have recently paid over $700 in arrears [water] and that was like two months ago that I paid that,” she contended.

The property owner was adamant that even if Howell could pay the arrears, she still did not want her in the house.

“I am taking it to court. If she doesn’t leave, that is the only recourse…. I have no other recourse. If the Welfare Department has decided they no longer pay for the house…I cannot speak for them…I just know what I have been told, what has been sent to me…and, therefore, I can’t continue either. The Welfare actually informed me they are stopping the payments,” the homeowner told Barbados TODAY.

When asked what reason the Government agency gave for that decision, she said; “When they visited the house recently, they were concerned about the state of some things in the house…. That’s all I would say… That house was given in 2020 – and this is 2023, only three years – in good condition. But there were things that had me very concerned as well about the state of the house.”

She contended that she had done her part to be flexible and accommodating.

“When it was COVID, the Welfare Department was paying half and she was no longer working and I accepted as a citizen that . . . Barbados was going through enough then, and I took half of the rent all through that year. I can’t do it any more. I am not going back there, and I have to get the house back to the condition that I would be happy with…and I need to have my house in order to do that. I am sorry for her position and condition, but there is no more that I can do,” the landlady asserted.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb