Quwaizah residents have started to trickle back home after being sheltered in furnished apartments for two months following the November floods, as authorities have now identified their homes as livable. But their homes are not ready to be occupied, the evacuees said, demanding an extended stay in the furnished apartments and more pocket money to help them fix their houses. The government has paid the rental rate of furnished apartments for over 2,500 families displaced by the floods and has given a weekly payment of SR3,000 to each family. Radah Al-Malki, a homeowner in flood-hit Quwaizah District, said that he was surprised by the authorities' decision to force his family to leave the furnished apartment. “We have lost a lot because of the floods and no compensation for our damaged home has been paid,” he said. His home was badly hit by the flood that left it with cracked walls and broken floors, he said. Sayaf Hamid said that he had to borrow SR22,000 to fix his house. “My relatives did not turn me down when I asked them to lend me money when they learned that we were kicked out of our shelter at the furnished apartment,” he said. The problem for returnees is the high cost of repair. “Construction workers have seized upon the floods as an opportunity to make a lot of money out of our misery,” Hamid added. “I am just wondering how the committees have determined that our home is ready to be occupied,” said Abdullah Al-Malki. Like other homeowners in Quwaizah, no compensation for damages has been paid to Al-Malki. “How am I going to repair my house now?” he asked. “When I asked the committee to visit my home and reconsider their decision, they refused,” he said. Another resident, Ahmad Al-Malki, explained that the committee assessing damages said that the vertical cracks in his home were not caused by the floods. “They said the cracks must be horizontal,” he said.
