Nestled beyond a small stream and beneath the canopy of thick trees in the hills of Danvers Pen, St Thomas, a sense of peace now rests.
On Wednesday, siblings Shamarie ‘Duxie’ McQueen and Shani McQueen stood in awe as they received the keys to their new homes, an emotional end to a chapter marked by devastation and uncertainty. It was in November 2022 that a fire razed their apartment in Seaforth, also in the parish, leaving them homeless and hopeless.
“Mi did inna Kingston when mi get a phone call by Coronation Market. Dem say, ‘Duxie, yuh house bun dung.’ An is like mi just panic same time, mi start bawl and just drop dung,” Duxie recalled, eyes brimming with emotion. “Mi lose everything. A did two bedroom, and one was mi room and mi use the other one as storage.”
Since then, Duxie, who works as a bus conductor, has been moving around, staying with his child’s mother and other relatives. His four-year-old son was just a baby when the fire struck. He now has a fully furnished one-bedroom house while Shani, a mother of three, received a two-bedroom unit. Both houses were constructed under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development’s Indigent Housing Programme and officially handed over by Minister Desmond McKenzie.
“I am overjoyed, tears all come a mi eye,” Duxie told THE WEEKEND STAR, at a loss for words.
He praised the government’s efforts but he was quick to suggest that politics – specifically the looming general election – played no part in the timing. Instead, he suggested that the contractor had challenges, something Duxie said he spoke about with the prime minister.
CONSTANT COMMUNICATION
“Mi and mi sister did always a correspond wid Minister McKenzie, wi MP, and the prime minister.” He said the promise for homes was made years ago.
“When the fire station did open in Yallahs, the prime minister did make a promise to us. Dem did say dem ago see to it seh we get one of the houses. Di whole a dem deh pan we side right through.”
The homes are not on the same land where the siblings’ original dwellings were. After the fire, they had nowhere suitable to rebuild. But help came Shani’s babyfather.
“Him say mi never affi ask him dat, cause him say him babymother bredda cya get a house and him nuh have no weh fi put it,” Duxie explained. The man later signed a document giving full permission for them to settle permanently on the land he owns and where Shani could finally rebuild.
Shani, now 27, works as a cashier in Seaforth and has lived in St Thomas all her life. She recounted that on the day of the fire, she went to the river.
“Coming back, wi get dress and go mi sister place. Wi then get a call seh di house a bun. When mi reach, everything done, even the metal pot,” she said. Shani explained that though she and her brother lived in separate houses, they were built on the same plot of land in Seaforth, which proved disastrous.
“The fire start a my brother house but because everything was so close, it spread to mine,” she said. Like her brother, she was displaced for years, staying at her children’s grandmother’s home.
“It never bad, the kids comfortable cause it is like home to dem as well. But mi always did want back something fi miself,” she said. “Honestly, mi feel blessed. Mi really appreciate it and mi grateful. There’s no words to express mi gratitude.”
During the handover ceremony, McKenzie said he knows about the effects of fires on families because there is one almost every week in his West Kingston constituency.
“So I made the commitment that we would respond to the needs and we would provide the assistance that is required to get the families back on their feet,” he said. He noted that more than $30 million was spent on the initiative and emphasised that the families were also receiving fully furnished units – each house came with a bed, refrigerator, and stove.