The sun was setting as an exhausted street vendor rewashed the dishes she’s been using to sell snacks since 6am at a tiny stall in a small, dirty alley in Bangkok’s biggest “slum” community.
But despite the disability that cripples use of one arm and the hardships she faces, Ratchani Cheausuwan now appears more hopeful about the inevitable eviction she and up to 100,000 of the capital’s poorest residents face when the government clears the land to build an IconSiam-like complex of shops, hotels and business centers.
Though she still doesn’t know what she’ll do when it happens, greater unity in the community frustrated by what they see as gross mismanagement of the process has eased her despair since Coconuts Bangkok first met her in late July.
“I hear that, as a disabled woman, I will get first pick of the apartments [being built to support evicted residents], so that’ll be really helpful and nice,” she said about one compensation option she had been absolutely dreading until recently.
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However, she tells Coconuts Bangkok that relocating will be difficult because one of her daughters has a mental disability.
“She’s really sick and cannot do anything at all. I handle everything around the house. Right now, I have no idea how we’d move her,” she said.
In late September, the Port Authority – which owns the land where thousands have families and generations have lived eight decades – unveiled a resident survey alongside representatives of Mahidol University.
The university had been hired to evaluate residents’ preferred compensation plans, and its launch was met with staunch resistance, said Penwadi Sangchan – manager of the Duang Prateep Foundation, which has been assessing the effects of the eviction on residents.
It laid out three options. Move into one of 6,000-plus identical, 33sqm units to be built in projects on former tanning factory land; or onto small, undeveloped plots on the outskirts. The third option was a cash buyout, and the amount recently announced along with the survey – THB200,000 (US$6,624) – struck many as an insult.
Khlong Toei residents to be pushed on eviction options
Penwadi said THB200,000 was, to many, an outrageously low amount for residents to abandon everything they’d ever known to build new homes and lives.
Though it was touted as a “survey” by officials, Penwadi said that was a misrepresentation, as it was actually a legally binding contract.
“Once you sign your name to it, it means you’ve officially picked your compensation plan,” she said.
“When the government said the cash payout would be THB200,000 – as it is in the current survey – the residents immediately protested. … The residents also submitted an official letter appealing for officials to reconsider the survey,” she said in a recent interview.
“So now Mahidol and the Port Authority say they will redo the survey. They are apparently now re-evaluating the compensation and asking for suggestions from the community,” she added.
Ratchani, whose loss of function in one arm leaves her hand clenched into a claw, feels she has a little more breathing room now.
“Of course, I’m very worried about what I’m going to do about my future,” she said, keeping a straight face as if not wanting to alarm her niece, 8, sitting behind Ratchani, waiting for her aunt, the sole breadwinner for a family of three, to finish her work.
“But I hear [the eviction] won’t happen for a long time, so I still have some time to figure it out,” she added with a new sense of hope she hadn’t displayed before.
As the surveys are being redone, residents are scrambling to elect new leaders they hope can represent them before the deal is done, so their voices are heard.
Correction: Due to a reporting error, the original version of this story misstated the amount of the cash buyout offer as THB20,000. It was in fact 10 times higher at THB200,000. We regret the error.
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