Jamaica’s housing challenges: Do we have the will, or just chat?
GROWING UP in the 1980s, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother in the then informal community of Stand Pipe in Kingston 6. My grandmother lived in a big yard, the same one that my mother grew up in.
As a little boy, I would walk from Old Hope Road down the narrow roadway which accommodated vehicular traffic up to the bridge. After passing the bridge, I would go up a dirt track with zinc fences on both sides.
It was extremely dark at night, as there were no streetlights, no paved roads.
In the 1980s, Stand Pipe was just one big community with little to no infrastructure in place.
As the years passed by, the development of the community occurred.
The bridge was rebuilt, so motor vehicles could now drive into the community; zinc fences were removed and block walls were constructed. I witnessed the expansion of l anes from footpaths to paved driving roads. This community eventually had running water and legal electricity.
Approximately 40 years later, issues of land ownership and titling continue to plague informal communities. Homes within these informal settlements are usually generational, and residents have nothing to prove ownership of their homes.
It is embarrassing that in modern-day Jamaica, many Jamaicans do not have a title to prove that they own a piece of Jamrock.
The reality is that previous and current governments have failed our people. Jamaica continues to struggle to address informal communities.
Although countless research studies have been conducted on the formalisation of informal settlements, the persons within these communities are not reaping the benefits. Taxpayers’ money is wasted on incomplete survey instruments and failed housing programmes.
The most recently commissioned survey was announced in 2021 during the Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change’s Sectoral presentation. Mr Pearnel Charles Jr stated that the Ministry of Housing is undertaking a comprehensive National Survey on Squatter Settlements.
However, the parent ministry, the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, i n 2018, launched a similar survey in which taxpayers had to pay a whopping $13 million.
Why is the Government commissioning a new survey instrument three years later? What happened to the results from the previous one?
STRATEGIC PLANNING IS NEEDED
Jamaica needs to move from commissioning surveys to creating a housing strategy to coordinate the laws, programmes, policies and decisions to address the housing situation effectively and efficiently in the country.
Housing reform in Jamaica has been haphazard, and it is not moving in the right direction. Therefore, strategic planning is needed to address the gaps and inequalities that exist in the housing market.
The Government needs to generate this plan urgently, as our approach to urban renewal is unsustainable. The Government must do more to ensure that those citizens who require assistance can have access to it.
In my Sectoral presentation in May 2021, I outlined some of the changes that must take place within the housing sector if Jamaica wants to attain Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10, which highlights the need to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and essential services, and the upgrading of slums.
I called on the Government to limit non-housing expenditure uses of the National Housing Trust (NHT). The NHT was set up to ensure that all persons within our society have access to decent housing, and the NHT is not doing this in its current form.
In a 2016 study, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) described the NHT as a ‘nonpro-poor’ policy, as high-income earners are twice as likely to obtain mortgages from the NHT than low-income earners. This highlights the need for reform of legislation governing the NHT. The NHT must increase its propoor expenditure to ensure that those within informal settlements benefit from State assistance.
After all, the Government has a duty to develop communities. This view was shared by Prime Minister Andrew Holness in a 2019 statement, where he stated that the Government “has to help [citizens] to regularise and [get] connected into the formal infrastructure” (JIS, 2019).
The prime minister’s words are contradictory to the Government’s actions.
The Government has neglected one of its key roles, which is to enhance citizens’ quality of life, especially the poor and vulnerable within our society.
URGENTLY REFORM NHT
The NHT must be urgently reformed to play a more prominent role in community renewal and the formalisation of informal settlements.
The NHT is well poised to do this, as it has a large budget surplus. This is supported by the 2018-2019 annual report, which shows that the NHT recorded $160 billion in accumulated profits.
These surpluses should be allocated to pro-poor expenditures such as:
1. Zinc fence-removal projects.
2. Improving sanitation facilities within communities.
3. Land titling.
4. Grants to low-income earners to fix dilapidated structures within informal communities.
5. Provision of rent subsidies for low-income tenants.
There is also a need for concerted efforts between Government entities to bring about much-needed change. Any programme geared towards improving squatter communities should be coordinated between the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) and the NHT.
In 1999, Relocation 2000, a programme to provide housing and infrastructure to persons living within squatter settlements, was launched by the P.J. Patterson-led administration.
Relocation 2000 was a programme under the NHT. I believe this programme should be re-established; however, the management of the programme should be a joint effort between NHT and HAJ.
The evaluation data f rom Relocation 2000 and Operation Pride will provide the Government with critical lessons learnt to guide the re-establishment of this programme; some of the failures had to do with lack of technology and technical skills within these institutions.
Our country has evolved since the 1990s, as we now have improvements in technologies and improved public-sector capacity to plan and execute programmes like these. The only thing we need right now is the willpower to manage these programmes.
It is time for the Government to take a more holistic approach to national development. Economic growth alone does not impact citizens ’lives; the Government must make a deliberate effort to reduce inequality within the society.
The Government needs to invest in pro-poor public expenditure such as decent housing, as these investments will improve citizens’ quality of life and serve as a catalyst to accelerate economic growth.