55 families to be evicted from their homes
The families of some 55 expatriate employees of the Ministry of Environment are on the verge of being homeless as they are living in old municipal quarters in Abu Hamour that are now being razed.
The tragedy of these families is that their bread-winners were originally employees of the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning (erstwhile the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture).
However, in 2006 environment was carved out of the civic ministry and made a separate ministry, so these staffers were, naturally, shifted to the new ministry (the Ministry of Environment).
But they continued to stay in the accommodation of the municipal ministry as the environment ministry neither signed new housing contracts with them nor did it provide them accommodation, reports Al Sharq.
However, the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning recently began serving these families notice of eviction on the ground that these housing units were to be demolished.
The head of the families told their employer, the environment ministry, that it should either ask the civic ministry not to demolish the housing units or provide them alternative accommodation.
They told the environment ministry that if it failed to do either of the above it should at least give them sufficient housing allowance so they could rent houses on their own and move their families. But their plea, according to Al Sharq, fell on deaf ears.
The real tragedy of these families is that their children are in schools and faced with the threat of eviction they don’t know what their future would be.
Originally, there were 85 families living in these municipal quarters in Abu Hamour.
However, after the civic ministry decided to raze these units, the engineers among them were provided accommodation and they moved out with their families.
But the technical staff and supervisors and others and their families were left in the lurch as they continued to live in these old housing units as they were not provided alternative housing.
alarming.... what's next?