‘A dream house’

Dane Coburn and Evadnie Smith, a couple who recently received a house from Prime Minister Andrew Holness, are not only elated about the dwelling gifted to them, but especially his announcement that there will be full resumption of face-to-face schooling after the upcoming midterm holidays.

Holness made the announcement for the full resumption of face-to-face schooling on February 10 during the sitting of the House of Representatives.

When face-to-face classes were suspended some 24 months ago, in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19, the couple, who are both school vendors, said they hit rock bottom.

For years, Coburn and Smith – who first met in Trout Hall, Clarendon, where Coburn left Kingston for to help with the picking of oranges for a while – depended on meagre profits from their hustle of selling toys and sweets at the gates of schools in the Corporate Area to survive.

Going out each day to sell their wares to children would also give them some respite from their depressing low standard of living in a little one-room board shack off Olympic Way in St Andrew, which they have occupied for the last 25 years.

Before the recent phased reopening of schools, like hundreds of other school vendors in Jamaica, the pair told The Gleaner that they were living “hand to mouth” during the pandemic.

“A di worst time fi we. We usually sell a school gate – Coburn Gardens [Primary and Junior High School], Seaward [Primary and Junior High School and] Dupont [Primary and Infant School]. We deh a everybody school gate pan wi little bicycle. We sell toys, dolly and sweetie and chocolate and dem sumn deh, but through the pandemic, we drop offa track,” Smith related to The Gleaner.

She added, “A little ackee him [Coburn] a sell fi help wi.”

Coburn said he has been finding other ways to make ends meet, such as doing stints of construction jobs, when they do come around.

The couple had, for years, been begging Holness, their member of parliament, to help them with constructing a house, and he came through on his promise during the pandemic.

The prime minister handed over a one-bedroom house to Coburn and Smith on February 4. The house was constructed at the cost of approximately J$2.8 million under the New Social Housing Programme.

Holness said as the member of parliament for some 25 years for St Andrew West Central, the poor living conditions of persons in his constituency weighed heavily on him, and he was doing all in his power to change their situations for the better.

“I know the conditions that exist within the communities, and very often I reflect on it. I reflect on what I have seen when I came here. In one yard, you might have sometimes up to 10 households, 10 houses, 10 distinct structures where families live in one little area and it is an improvised living, not with the best of circumstances,” Holness said.

“And these circumstances generate all kinds of social conditions. We understand this, we know this, we see it; the lack of privacy leads to a breakdown in respect, which leads to a breakdown in the social order.”

Holness said it is estimated that there are about 10,000 households in Jamaica that are living in just as worst conditions as the little one-room board shack the couple previously lived in.

ELATED AND OVERWHELMED

Coburn, who gave the vote of thanks to the prime minister, said he was “elated and overwhelmed”.

“I’m overwhelmed. I call it the dream house, because I did never really live nowhere. The house was pallet. I get the pallet. I buy the pallet and get cement together and put on two zinc pan it,” Coburn explained.

Coburn said he has been disappointed numerous times in the past with promises of a house.

The couple have been living at the location for the last 25 years and lost the only child they conceived together.

To add to the pain, they said the structure they lived in had holes and they got wet during heavy rains and hurricanes over the years.

“Hurricane blow through the house. Ivan do we the worst. A it kinda mash up the house too,” Coburn told The Gleaner.

Smith had two children in Clarendon before she met Coburn. They distinctly told her that they would not visit her in the capital city, given the conditions she settled for; however, they are now willing to visit.

“Mi daughter glad. From when mi daughter come, she tell me the last time she not coming back down here, so mi glad I have a house now,” Smith said.

She said the new house is a reward to her for fighting life’s battles with Coburn over the years, even when she was encouraged to seek greener pastures.

“A nuff time dem a seh mi fi lef him and ray, ray, ray and mi a seh him carry mi from country come here, so why mi fi let him?” she said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com