Brothers in need - St Elizabeth siblings endure hellish conditions

Unable to drag themselves out of the malaise and subhuman living conditions that permeate the building without roof, windows, and doors, exposing them to crawling insects and vermin, Alvin Hyde, 53, and his 52-year-old brother, Perry Hyde, appear to have resigned themselves to a mere day-to day-survival.

The brothers, who are from Braes River in St Elizabeth, live in an abandoned building on the Gilnock property near Goshen in the parish. They said that they were forced the move out of the family house after their mother died seven years ago.

"After we mother dead, another family member tek the zinc off the house and run we out, so we come over here to live because we did not have nowhere to go," Alvin told THE WEEKEND STAR recently.

With limited marketable skills to earn money to improve their lives, the brothers said the little they earn from doing odd chores in the neighbourhood is insufficient for food and to find proper living accommodation.

"It hard to get work to make money to buy food," Alvin said. "People round here used to give we little something to do, but it hard pon dem, too," said the indigent man, while attending to a small iron pot on a wood fire.

Alvin said that he and his brother receive food from the Poor Relief Department at times. However, they are hoping for greater levels of assistance.

"We want a house so when rain fall we nuh get wet. Right now a the Red Cross give few sheet a zinc and we put it up top. Dem have hole inna them, so we patch it so that we nuh wet up too much," the older brother said.

It is unclear whether the Hyde brothers have been recommended for assistance under the Government's New Social Housing Programme (NSHP). More than 100 units have so far been built under the state-funded initiative aimed at providing suitable accommodation to some of the society's neediest persons.

Kern Spencer, former member of parliament (MP) for North East St Elizabeth, who is seeking his party's nod to contest the next parliamentary election, turned up with a food package for the Hyde brothers while the news team was at the location.

The former MP said efforts are being made get help for the destitute men through the NSHP.

"Their living condition is horrible," Spencer said, while adding that there is a growing problem of homelessness in the parish.