No one should wait this long — especially not the most vulnerable

Maurine Catlyn’s story should trouble the conscience of every Barbadian. For 18 long years, this visually impaired single mother of four has waited, as reported by this media house last week, for the government to honour a promise of housing assistance.

Her home, if it can even be called that, is a fragile and crumbling plywood structure precariously balanced on four concrete blocks. There is no running water, no electricity, no bathroom. Her five-year-old daughter must walk to her grandmother’s nearby home just to bathe. Rainwater seeps through broken panes and holes in the walls. This is not a temporary hardship caused by natural disasters or unforeseen circumstances; it is a harsh, ongoing reality that Maurine and her children endure daily.

No Barbadian — and certainly no mother raising four children while living with a disability — should be forced to survive in conditions that resemble a modern-day shanty, waiting nearly two decades for dignity and shelter.

Maurine’s plight began in 2007 when she first applied to the Rural Development Commission for housing assistance. She did everything right: submitting all necessary documents, including a land tax certificate, and identifying a family-owned plot where a proper home could be constructed. She followed up on her application and patiently awaited help. But the only response was silence, vague promises, and the repeated assurance that an officer would visit — visits that never materialised.

After nearly two decades, the newly amalgamated Rural and Urban Development Commission (RUDC) has announced an investigation into her case. While this step is welcome, it is long overdue and nowhere near sufficient. This investigation must not be viewed as a favour to one desperate woman; it must be regarded as a matter of institutional accountability and urgency.

Maurine’s story is emblematic of a deeper, systemic failure — a troubling truth about how the vulnerable are neglected within our bureaucratic systems. The merger of the Rural and Urban Development Commissions, shifting government policies, and the talk of “resource allocation” mean nothing to a mother whose children endure the cold and damp of a shelter unfit for human habitation. The bureaucratic red tape and shifting departmental structures are cold comfort when the cracks in that fragile plywood home grow wider with every storm.

How many others like Maurine remain hidden behind closed doors and unopened files? How many applications for assistance have been lost or forgotten in government archives? The creation of the RUDC offers a unique opportunity to reset the system, but this can only succeed if accompanied by a thorough audit of all outstanding cases, prioritising the elderly, disabled, and economically disadvantaged.

It is profoundly unjust when those most in need must resort to public outcry just to be heard. A just society cannot tolerate allowing vulnerable citizens to fall through widening cracks in the social safety net.

Eighteen years is not merely a long wait. It is a cruel sentence — a sentence of poverty, anxiety, and indignity imposed not by law, but by administrative neglect and failure.

If the government and the nation truly intend to care for our most vulnerable, Maurine Catlyn’s case must serve as a wake-up call and a catalyst for urgent reform. This cannot end with her story alone. Every Barbadian still awaiting assistance deserves a timely, transparent, and meaningful response — not promises for next year, not after yet another departmental reshuffle, but now.

Let Maurine’s story be the turning point. Let it mark the last time anyone must endure nearly two decades waiting for a basic human right.