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For more than a decade, the Gas­par­il­lo Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) Cen­tre stood hid­den be­hind over­grown bush­es, its rooms van­dalised and its halls used as a refuge by the home­less. Now, af­ter years of frus­tra­tion from res­i­dents, the long-aban­doned fa­cil­i­ty may fi­nal­ly be giv­en a new pur­pose.

The cen­tre, one of 26 EC­CEs built across the coun­try un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010 and 20215 at a com­bined cost of $312 mil­lion, was nev­er opened. In­stead, it fell in­to dis­re­pair, be­com­ing an eye­sore on Church Street next to the Gas­par­il­lo Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, a clean-up ef­fort be­gan on the com­pound. Gas­par­il­lo/Bonne Aven­ture coun­cil­lor Ravi Pooran Ma­haraj led a team of res­i­dents who cleaned up the com­pound, re­veal­ing the scale of the ne­glect. In­side the build­ing, they found bro­ken glass, walls de­faced, and rooms strewn with garbage and even sheets and pil­lows, signs that the cen­tre had long served as a shel­ter for the home­less.