KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Over 120 fam­i­lies in Trinidad and To­ba­go are wak­ing up in new homes this Christ­mas.

Ac­cord­ing to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), which con­firmed the fig­ures via a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest, 122 keys were hand­ed over be­tween April 28 and No­vem­ber 21. The re­port did not in­clude al­lo­ca­tions be­fore April.

For many fam­i­lies, the de­liv­er­ies mark the end of years-long waits. Near­ly two-thirds of the homes went to ap­pli­cants who first ap­plied be­tween 2005 and 2012, with the av­er­age re­cip­i­ent wait­ing 15 to 16 years. One al­lo­ca­tion dates back even fur­ther: a Cy­press Hills ap­pli­cant re­ceived keys on Oc­to­ber 14, 2025, af­ter sub­mit­ting their ap­pli­ca­tion in Ju­ly 2000—a 25-year wait.

Some al­lo­ca­tions were far quick­er. A Vic­to­ria Keyes unit was hand­ed over in June 2025 to an ap­pli­cant who ap­plied in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

De­spite the cel­e­bra­tions, some res­i­dents have raised con­cerns about safe­ty, in­fra­struc­ture, and de­fects in the units. A res­i­dent of Oa­sis Greens, who moved in April, said ba­sic ser­vices re­main in­com­plete. “We’re cur­rent­ly beg­ging for street lights,” she said, not­ing a re­cent car theft and un­clear se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments. “The se­cu­ri­ty that is here right now, they were ba­si­cal­ly told that they are here to pro­tect the emp­ty units,” she added.

Res­i­dents al­so ex­pressed frus­tra­tion with home­own­ers’ as­so­ci­a­tion fees and re­cur­ring flood­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly near the se­cu­ri­ty post and along in­ter­nal roads. While of­fi­cials pre­vi­ous­ly vis­it­ed to take mea­sure­ments, no fol­low-up work was done.

De­fects in the units re­main an­oth­er is­sue. Res­i­dents re­port­ed be­ing told to sub­mit is­sues on­line, with cov­er­age un­der a three-month war­ran­ty. “When we put in re­quests to talk about the de­fects, they come along af­ter the three months and tell us our war­ran­ty is ba­si­cal­ly up. So we have to fix it on our own,” the res­i­dent said.

The bulk of homes dis­trib­uted went to two ma­jor de­vel­op­ments: Cy­press Hills in San Fer­nan­do and Oa­sis Greens in Ch­agua­nas. Oth­er al­lo­ca­tions in­clud­ed Ridgeview Heights (Arou­ca), Cashew Gar­dens (Ch­agua­nas), Orop­une Gar­dens (Pi­ar­co), Eden Gar­dens (Freeport), Re­al Spring (Val­sayn), Trou Macaque (Laven­tille), Gomez Trace (Moru­ga), Point Fortin, and Tarou­ba.

The FOIA re­sponse al­so re­vealed that two homes were al­lo­cat­ed for emer­gency hous­ing on a tem­po­rary three-month ba­sis. One house was al­lo­cat­ed fol­low­ing a re­quest from Min­is­ter David Lee. No al­lo­ca­tions were made at the re­quest of Min­is­ters Anil Roberts or Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, ac­cord­ing to the HDC.

—With re­port­ing by Shas­tri Boodan