Hope rises from the ash - Stony Hill families get homes two years after fire destroyed dwelling

Fire took everything from Trissan Bartley two years ago - walls, memories and the comfort of knowing where she would sleep. The seven-bedroom home where generations of her family lived and laughed was reduced to rubble by the October 2023 blaze.

However, despair and uncertainty have been pushed aside by hope - not as a promise - but a place they can again lay their heads in comfort.

Bartley, along with her grandmother, Marva Harrison, and aunt, Sennette Hinds, were last Friday handed keys to newly built homes at Brook Level in Stony Hill, St Andrew, bringing relief after their displacement.

The houses were delivered under the Government's New Social Housing Programme (NSHP). For the close-knit family, it marked a long-awaited return to stability after months of living in borrowed space and surviving on hope.

"I'm very happy. I thought this was going to take a couple more years to build, but they really came through for us," she said. "I'm really grateful for this place I can call home."

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, in his keynote address, explained that the homes were delivered to worthy beneficiaries. He emphasised that social housing is financed by taxpayers and grounded in social responsibility.

"It doesn't mean that the house is free, somebody pays for it. Who pays for it? Everybody. It's your tax that pays for the house," he said.

Meanwhile, a grateful Bartley recalled the day their lives were disrupted.

"I was not at home when the fire started. I came home after they put out the fire and there was nothing left," Bartley recalled. "I remember thinking, where am I going to sleep?"

The cause of the blaze was never officially determined.

"Everyone was outside and no one knew what happened. The board in the ceiling, we guess. that's where the fire started and it spread all over," she told THE STAR.

With their family house reduced to ruins, the women were forced to rely on relatives. They crowded into a single room across the road from their former home. Harrison said it was difficult, but they made it work.

"My sister has one room there, that's where we all were staying," she explained.

"With everyone in the same space, of course it was frustration some of the times, and miserable, but the greatest thing is that we had somewhere where we all could stay, even if it is a one bedroom."

She said the strain was hardest on the elderly.

"My mother sleep on a piece of leather couch. Sometimes I cry for her because it itchy and she is senile," Harrison said. "My son slept behind the door on a chair every night for the two years."

When officials said the damaged structure would have to be demolished before rebuilding could begin, Harrison feared the wait would stretch endlessly.

"I almost fainted. I cried so till, because I was thinking the next 10 or 13 years before we get a house," she said. "I never liked the idea of leaving my family homeless."

Instead, less than two years later, the family is preparing to move into three adjacent units, each with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, complete with living areas and kitchens - homes designed to restore dignity and independence to a family that once shared everything under one roof.

The thought of standing in her own kitchen to prepare meals excites Bartley.

"I'm so looking forward to cook. I have my own kitchen," Bartley said. "I've already started making a list of things that I want to try and cook."

Her grandmother agreed with a laugh. "This family likes to experiment in the kitchen," Harrison said.