JRC evicts distressed Old Harbour family

The eviction the JRC said is to facilitate upcoming plans to restart the public passenger train service.

While doing a few errands in the town Wednesday morning, 23-year-old Abigail Lewis received a distressed call from her little brother that two men had barged into the house at 49 South Street, Old Harbour and began throwing out the furniture.

The men, she said, are representatives of the national railway company acting on instructions of a 10-day eviction notice issued on June 28, 2021. This was surprising to the family, Lewis said, as the JRC on May 17, 2021 served her uncle Christopher Thomas with a summons to appear before the courts on September 13, 2021.

For context and clarity, Lewis told Old Harbour News that the family had a lease agreement through her late grand uncle Linford Johnson, who died March 2020. This lease agreement, which Old Harbour News has seen, expired in 2018, however.

Mr Johnson was a former employee of the JRC until retirement and up to the time of his passing was paying a monthly lease by way of deduction from his pension, Lewis said.  On the property is an old wooden building which they have called home for decades, Lewis said, noting a few upgrades were done to maintain the integrity of the structure.

Following the death of Johnson, Lewis said her 44-year-old mother Yvette Thomas, who was raised by Johnson on the same property, visited the JRC head office in Kingston and requested a new lease agreement but this was turned down by the state-owned company.

But a little more than a year later the JRC has sought to remove them in a manner the family deemed to be unjust as they haven’t been given sufficient time to find a suitable place to relocate.
When she returned home later in the day on Wednesday, Lewis alleges that items were damaged and missing as well, apparently during the process of being evicted. She said she has filed a report with the Old Harbour police.

“I have a phone, the screen is completely crack right up. My component set is damaged, I had a phone that was in the house and that phone cannot be found either,” Lewis said.

But speaking to Old Harbour News Thursday, Acting General Manager, JRC, Donald Hanson, said the family was given notice to vacate the property in March of last year, the same month Mr Johnson died.

“We have been begging them over and over to vacate because that is the place where we have to place the train quarters and we have to do repairs to it and create additional rooms, because it’s about six train crews have to stay there,” Hanson said.

“We have no option,” the JRC chief added. “If this wasn’t the case it wouldn’t be like this we would have probably work out a lease agreement for them because we understand the plight that people in right now.”

Other settlers on the property have a lease agreement with the JRC, but those dwellings are inconsequential to the landlord and the existing project being undertaken.

A month ago the government announced plans to resuscitate the public railway transportation sector via the towns of Old Harbour, Linstead and Spanish Town. This is projected to become fully operational for the start of the new school year in September.

“We are fixing up the station building to accommodate the passengers, we doing Spanish Town, we doing Bog Walk and we doing the one in Linstead. The only one that is way behind is Old Harbour, because we have to get authorization from the National Heritage Trust to pull down the top. It’s a heritage site so we couldn’t just go there and do what we want. We have to ask for approval and that approval took about two months,” said Hanson.

The JRC boss stated the company is willing to “give it some thought” if the ousted family apply for lease to reside elsewhere along the parcel of land estimated to be in excess of 10 acres.

“If they can find the money to put up a little thing (house) out there I think the board will consider it,” he said.

Lewis said the eviction has turned her world upside down.

“I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping since two days now, I haven’t been sleeping, I really can’t sleep,” she lamented. “My brother, he’s depressed right now that much I can say. He’s also missing a boom box that was here.”