The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) cur­rent­ly owes con­trac­tors $1.3 bil­lion.

This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day.

“We have been tardy in our pay­ments, our con­trac­tors are up­set,” Robin­son-Reg­is said dur­ing the launch of an up­dat­ed on­line por­tal called the Hous­ing Ap­pli­ca­tion Ful­fil­ment Sys­tem (HAFS), which is de­signed to make it eas­i­er for ap­pli­cants to ap­ply for HDC hous­es.

How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter blamed the over­all HDC debt part­ly on er­rant ten­ants, in par­tic­u­lar those who live in rent-to-own, li­cense to oc­cu­py and rental units.

“I know of peo­ple in my own con­stituen­cy whose rental may be in the or­der of $100, $250 and yet they ow­ing $50,000, which means from the day they got the unit they have not paid,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

Ac­cord­ing to the HDC, rent for these units costs be­tween $100 to $500 month­ly but not all the er­rant ten­ants live in old­er units.

Ten­ants of new prop­er­ties owe the HDC ap­prox­i­mate­ly $22 mil­lion. They live in com­mu­ni­ties such as the Li­on’s Gate Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment in En­ter­prise, Re­al Springs Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment in Val­sayn South and the Vieux Fort Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment in St James.

Over­all, delin­quent ten­ants owe the HDC ap­prox­i­mate­ly $151 mil­lion. Round­ed off in 2021, that debt was $143 mil­lion, 2020 - $139 mil­lion and in 2019 $103 mil­lion. In 2018, close to 160 mil­lion was owed by ten­ants and $157 and $159 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly was owed for 2017 and 2016.

At the event, Robin­son-Reg­is said the HDC was owed a to­tal of $1,012,393,557.36 in ar­rears from delin­quent clients for a six-year pe­ri­od.

She got this num­ber when she added the an­nu­al delin­quen­cy debt from 2016 to the present.

How­ev­er, HDC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia that was not how the debt is sup­posed to be cal­cu­lat­ed be­cause it’s a run­ning debt and not an ac­cu­mu­lat­ed to­tal.

“The fig­ure, as of now, based on what peo­ple should have paid for the year or paid on their port­fo­lio is $151 mil­lion,” Mc­Far­lane said.

Nev­er­the­less, Robin­son-Reg­is not­ed dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion that the debt owed by ten­ants was not on­ly ham­per­ing the pay­ment of con­trac­tors but al­so pre­vent­ing re­pairs to units and the ex­pan­sion of the ac­cel­er­at­ed hous­ing pro­gramme. “We have been pro­vid­ing this fa­cil­i­ty even though we do have such a high delin­quen­cy rate and some of the peo­ple who owe the HDC are some of the peo­ple who com­plain the most,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She added while they have a du­ty to peo­ple, it goes both ways. She said dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the HDC is­sued a mora­to­ri­um on pay­ments to help ease the fi­nan­cial strain on many of its cus­tomers but now that the coun­try is re­open­ing, she en­cour­aged them to pay what is owed.

“I’m hop­ing that peo­ple will un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion in which we have found our­selves and they will, in fact, do what they have to do,” she said.

To make the pay­ment process eas­i­er, the HDC has cre­at­ed an Om­ni chan­nel for cus­tomers to make pay­ments, which in­cludes bank trans­fers, bank de­posits, pay­roll de­duc­tions and via Sure Pay.

It will al­so re­sume its pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign.

In 2016, Robin­son-Reg­is said the HDC was owed $111 mil­lion by ten­ants and through the same ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign, the cor­po­ra­tion was able to col­lect $72 mil­lion in ar­rears.

Cur­rent Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, who was present at yes­ter­day’s func­tion, was the Hous­ing Min­is­ter then

“We want to en­sure that peo­ple feel the com­mit­ment to pay and al­so that it is not a dif­fi­cul­ty to make their pay­ments,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She said the HDC was al­so re­or­gan­is­ing so it can achieve its man­date of pro­vid­ing af­ford­able hous­ing, a goal it had moved away from over the years.

Over 200,000 cit­i­zens are await­ing place­ment and the Min­is­ter en­cour­aged them to vis­it the on­line por­tal HAFS and up­date their ap­pli­ca­tions. By log­ging in or reg­is­ter­ing on http://hafs.hous­ing.gov.tt/, ap­pli­cants can con­duct self-as­sess­ments, ob­tain pre-ap­provals via the mort­gage cal­cu­la­tor, check the sta­tus of their ap­pli­ca­tion and ob­tain a ref­er­ence num­ber. There is al­so an op­tion for help and sup­port on­line.

Mc­Far­lane said this was just one of the many in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy projects the HDC had em­barked on. It has al­so up­dat­ed its phone lines.