IN simple language, a shelter over one’s head is an absolute requirement. This means housing.  It should be a compulsive necessity, since it is about ownership of a very important asset that adds value to one’s social stock, thereby improving one’s material standing in the process.
Further, it is a form of security, especially in the case of a family, providing both spiritual and material comfort and a legacy of which to be proud.
Housing has continued to be a key component of every Administration’s social development programme, since Guyana became an independent nation in 1966.  Those of a sufficiently mature age, will recall the Feed Clothes and House policy of the then Forbes Burnham government.

It was a visionary initiative, particularly for the fact that it had sought to make Guyana self-sufficient in the realm of food security, and providing housing to the working-class.  It was an important part of the conceived socialist plan of making “the small man a real man.”

Much to the credit of the then government, thousands of Guyanese through self-help, were able to become home-owners. In fact, well-known housing communities such as Roxanne Burnham Gardens, Guyhoc Park, South Ruimveldt, Melanie Damishana, Tucville, Tucber, North Ruimveldt, and Meadow Brook Gardens came to fruition during this period.
Fast forward to the mid-1980s that began the steady drift of persons from the rural to the urban environs in search of employment opportunities and inadequate housing became a stark reality. This ushered in the phenomenon of squatting.

Even the successor People’s Progressive Party/Civic(PPP/C) multi- billion dollar response of distributing 55,000 house lots as a means of alleviating what was essentially a housing crisis, has not adequately solved the nation’s housing problem.
This programme, which was used as a political drawing card by the then administration, primarily benefited those who were eligible for mortgage facilities, in addition to those who had ready, available finances. And if we are to be guided by Minister Bulkan’s figures, of approximately 28,000 of these lots, for a 50 percentage unoccupancy, then it is not difficult to understand why there are thousands of Guyanese who are still unable to own their home.

Dissecting this into the smaller time frame from 2011 t0 2015, during which 20,000 lots were developed, there is a figure of less than 4000 houses being built in 38 housing schemes.  This would have cost some $13 billion, with a further $16 billion still needed for infrastructure, as outlined by the minister.

What a revelation! Taxpayer’ money was not properly spent. In fact, for such a huge investment, every lot ought to have been occupied with a built home. Receiving a houselot was a good start on the quest for home ownership; but the means to build was another.  This definitely was not part of the PPP/C MP’s understanding of housing, as he boldly alluded that persons needed houselots for home construction, and not a ‘’tenement policy.” How sad and shortsighted a view on such an important aspect of human existence. It is a bird that cannot fly.

It is a blinkered, as well as a deceptive view by this MP who, if he had meant to be objective and honest with regard to the coalition government’s housing policy, would have discered a government that has inherited a national housing policy that has proven inadequate in addressing the housing needs of the nation in a holistic manner, despite the billions expended.

It is a strategy meant to cater for the more than 25,000 unanswered housing applicants, waiting for a lot since the 1990s and into the new millennium; and the really poor who cannot afford to build homes of their own.
It is seeking also to give dignity to the category, such as the Broad Street group, for whom the government will be building 72 homes at a cost of $43M at Plantation Prosperity on the East Bank of Demerara. Even Food For The Poor is joining in the latter endeavour, for success. Provision has also been made for squatters from Sophia to be housed at government’s expense on the East Coast of Demerara. This will be done in the form of core homes.

This MP should be asked to explain his former government’s decision to sell acreages of land to friends and cronies who, as land developers, had planned to build homes and sell at astronomical prices well beyond the means of the working-class. How could this have happened by an administration that spoke about housing the nation? Where was the social responsibility in ensuring that the housing needs of the less financially capable, were a priority?

This MP should be informed that there have been very favourable responses to the new housing alternatives as offered by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA). These have been attracting buyers from across ethnic lines.
He must be further reminded that it is not about what he has derisively described as “tenement policy.’’ Instead, it is the government’s recognition of its social responsibility in ensuring that its programme is adequate in providing housing for citizens. And this is in keeping with the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, that spells out the right to adequate housing; and the subsequent 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that supports this ideal.

The Department of Housing, a division of the Ministry of Communities, has a budgetary allocation of $6B to further advance its programme in 2018.