Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Some 600 free hous­es for un­der­priv­i­leged peo­ple are ahead.

Gov­ern­ment is sink­ing $100 mil­lion in­to build­ing 600 hous­es in 26 ar­eas for vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple via the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, which in­volves giv­ing the hous­es to such peo­ple for free, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing about the mat­ter dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the 2024 Bud­get, Im­bert said one of the most im­por­tant as­pects of the Hous­ing Min­istry’s work for 2024 is the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme. The pro­gramme, Im­bert said, was start­ed in Moru­ga and was cham­pi­oned by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Im­bert added, “There was a vil­lage in Moru­ga where peo­ple were liv­ing in quite im­pov­er­ished con­di­tions in board hous­es and the vi­sion of the Prime Min­is­ter at the time was to con­vert those board hous­es in­to con­crete struc­tures and that was the birth of the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme.

“What it does is that it cre­ates for some­one—ob­vi­ous­ly un­der­priv­i­leged and vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies be­cause clear­ly, this for the peo­ple at the low­est end of the in­come spec­trum—but what it does is it takes some­body who’s liv­ing in a board house in quite un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and gives them free of charge ... this is not a sit­u­a­tion where the per­son has to put out any mon­ey.

“... It gives these vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, free of charge, a two-bed­room con­crete starter house com­plete with all fa­cil­i­ties—in­ter­nal plumb­ing, prop­er arrange­ments and so on.”

Im­bert added, “So it lifts the per­son out of an un­der­priv­i­leged sit­u­a­tion and gives them a brand new con­crete struc­ture which they can then de­vel­op.

“We’ve al­lo­cat­ed $100 mil­lion to this pro­gramme and we ex­pect to con­struct 600 of these starter house in 2024 in 26 ar­eas through­out the coun­try.

“The cost of the hous­es is on­ly be­tween $150,000 and $175,000, where­as in the past, pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions were build­ing HDC hous­es for one and a half mil­lion dol­lars. We are able to build a two-bed­room mod­ern con­crete house for these un­der­priv­i­leged peo­ple for $150,000—be­lieve it or not.”