From colony to nation

HOUSING shortage becomes more of a scandal with each passing year. The Ministry of Housing announced that it had another batch of houses in the La Penitence area available to the public for hire purchase and rental. One hundred and thirty-eight hire purchase and 50 apartment houses for rental. The Housing Department was flooded with 3,300 applications for these 188 houses, and more are still to pour in since closing date for applications has not yet been fixed. The applications represent a group of more than 15,000 people, almost two-thirds of whom are pleading with Housing Officers to give them the opportunity of living in the 50 apartment houses.

NOWHERE TO SLEEP

The plight of some of these range from nowhere of their own to sleep when night comes, to families of eight and 12 who are huddled together in a small dark room, in Albouystown, Kitty or the slums of Georgetown. While in the rural communities housing is also a problem, in Georgetown it is a very big headache. I understand that some bachelors are using the housing shortage as an excuse to postpone naming the day, and some married couples are employing various methods of family planning, to keep the family down to a manageable size and save themselves the embarrassment of having to move out of rented bedrooms to look for homes of their own.

No, this is not a report of the exact situation faced by the Housing authorities in 2018. Instead, this is an article from the Sunday Graphic, September 23, 1962- back in the good old days which every so often, some clueless letter writers long for a return to. Housing is however still a problem, a labyrinth of infrastructural, social anthropology and income earning evaluations necessary against the backdrop of a conservative banking loan system, that cannot correspond to the needs of unstructured earning niches.

I can remember when the East-West Ruimveldt front road was not an illegal housing scheme. On the embankment of a draining canal, there was ‘Goat Lady’ at the western head of Laing Avenue, and ‘Flat Taps’ Enter the Dragon at the other end up to the police outpost of West Ruimveldt, with about two other shops in between. The working class families that moved in the Ruimveldt scheme area with nine, 12 and 14-year-olds in 10 years had become adults living in the same congested area.

When housing is provided it is not provided in coexistence to an industrial site, so for the majority without transportation after a month of the cost of commuting, they creep back to the familiar environment and grab space to squat. The Industrial Estate at Coldingen on the East Coast was a constructive idea to decentralise the workforce and keep people from travelling and renting in Georgetown. I had an advertising relationship with one company there, building industrial spares, but due to electricity costs coupled with no local bureau to advocate local products, the company folded. Housing is a driving force behind the economic woes for many families. Owning also has its problems. How does a parent/small business person that makes dhal puri, coconut biscuits and pone for semi-literate wholesale customers who never the less pay, but have never written a receipt or product request invoice to provide paper trail support to fulfill the bank’s request for documentation? Can the home applicant attempt a revolution at the risk of losing customers upon requesting a receipt relationship, towards acquiring a loan?

The economy has not yet expanded the receptive scope, to recognise and properly include that wider existence of small and cottage businesses into the formal service sector, though the Small Business Bureau is making inroads in that direction. Collaboration should be necessary to start that process of engaging applicants at CH&PA, who need houses to create ‘homes’ but are confounded by alien paperwork systems. With the infusion of the Petroleum sector into the economy and the development of long-planned access roads linking the coast to the Linden Highway, away from the vulnerable East Bank Road. This will introduce the development of new housing communities and enhance those already existing but strangled by the singular East Bank road congestion.

Living space has led to conflicts, genocide and continuous warfare; we are blessed in a land where new housing areas can have paved streets, playgrounds and homely relaxation design facilities, and not condensed roads and miniature mud banks for pedestrian passage- once the money is available because we have the land space. Our developers cannot be fossilised by the past housing schemes that consisted of narrow streets -which appear to be put together in a hurry -that didn’t include people walking to school and work. So the pavements that constitute a sense of security away from vehicular traffic especially on a rainy day were left out. Look back for a minute to the West African cities recorded by European visitors in the 14th century, with their wide avenues and bordered by palm trees for inspiration as the process to house Guyanese continues.