A homeless man who has been living in a tree house at the Tunapuna Public Cemetery for the past 17 years faces eviction from the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation.
Adrian Garcia yesterday pleaded for the corporation not to evict him.
If he is given marching orders, Garcia said he would have to join the growing homeless population on the city streets.
Garcia lives in a three-foot by four-foot, crudely built tree house that overlooks the sprawling burial ground off the Priority Bus Route.
He is one of two men who reside and work in the graveyard. The other is Ricardo Alvarez who lives in a tomb and cultivates organic crops in three troughs in the graveyard which he sells to mourners and motorists.
Alvarez’s story was highlighted in the T&T Guardian on Monday in an article entitled Growing Life Among The Dead.
However, chairman of the corporation Edwin Gooding said he intended to evict both men as soon as possible.
Gooding has ordered “a report” into Alvarez’s case.
The report would be compiled by an official responsible for the corporation’s parks, recreation grounds and cemeteries, Gooding said yesterday.
“These people would have to go soon. We will treat with them in a humane manner. However, I still want the senior official to make his visit and bring a report to council telling us what his findings are and how he proposes to deal with the situation so council can approve it.
“One problem the corporation faces is that when we put them (homeless) out they have a tendency to come back so enforcement has to be maintained,” he added.
Gooding said the cemetery dwellers could be assisted by the Ministry of Social Development if they needed help.
Yesterday, Garcia, 46, described his tree house, the third he has constructed, as his castle.
His two previous houses were destroyed. One was torched and the other was chopped down by the corporation in an attempt to evict him.
In 1999, Garcia who did not go to school, walked out of his parents’ Tunapuna home due to sibling rivalry.
After days of wandering, Garcia said his journey led him to an abandoned mausoleum in the cemetery where he has lived for five years.
To eke out a living, Garcia began digging graves and cleaning yards for people in the community.
“Then one day the corporation ordered me to leave. They did not want me to occupy any land space and that’s when I opted to live above ground level by building a house in the trees,” Garcia said.
After his two previous tree houses were destroyed, Garcia built his third, using strips of rusty galvanise sheetings, weather-beaten lumber and end of carpets which were salvaged from the side of the roadway.
“I take about two days to build this tree house last month. It tiny but it real comfortable. It’s so peaceful and quiet up there. I don’t have a bed or any furniture. But it’s my castle,” said Garcia, as he skillfully climbed from one branch to another to get to his front door.
At the base of the tree, Garcia prepares his meals on a fireside.
At the entrance of the cemetery, where a standpipe is located, Garcia bathes and does his laundry.
He said his mother, who lives in Oropune, Piarco, begged him last year to turn his life around and return home.
“I complied but I didn’t stay there too long. After ten months I packed up and leave. I realised that my heart and life was in the cemetery. This is where I belong,” he added.
Garcia said the cemetery had now become his sanctuary.
“In here it real safe... sometimes you would see people running through the cemetery late at nights and you know they just rob somebody and trying to escape but nobody never interfere with me.
“It’s far better to live with the dead than the living. If they (corporation) put me out I will have to live on the streets,” Garcia said.
However, Alvarez said he would not resist the corporation’s move to evict him.
“I will not put up a fight. I know I am breaking the law. I don’t think I was disrespecting the dead by cultivating crops in here. To me, it was something positive that I was doing but not everyone would share the same view,” Alvarez added.