There’s no other place like home

By JIMMY KALEBE
TWO single mothers who were evicted by National Housing Corporation (NHC) last week at different locations in Lae were all smiles after keys to their houses were given back to them this week.
Zuabe Tinning, of section 35, allotment 15 at Gurney Street, Eriku said it was a big relief after she spent almost a week out in the Lae rain.
“All my belongings were soaked as a result and we had to change our clothes through the night as the makeshift shelter we lived in could not hold out the rain,” she said.
“It was really an ordeal and a traumatising moment for me and my kids.”
Expressing the similar sentiments, Bafiguo Don, of section 3, allotment 5 at 12th Street, Top Town, said: “I am a government officer and I have the right to stay in the house. I am a legal tenant of this State property and am bound by the legal tenancy agreement. However, the move by NHC has been a very traumatising for my family and I,” she said.
“We stayed outside in a makeshift tent. My baby got very sick and we could not eat properly all throughout the last five days.”
Don, a senior physiotherapist at Lae’s Angau Hospital, said for the NHC to remove her from the house was not right.
“I took the case to the district court but lost and made an appeal to the National Court and when the new administration came in under Joe Bulahge, I was given a new tenancy agreement while the case is still pending in court,”she said.
Don said she did not have any arrears with the NHC until August when they told her to move because someone from the public prosecutor’s office was moving in. Both women have now got back into their homes and will appear at Lae courts at different dates to
defend their rights to their properties.