With over 200,000 applicants on the Housing Development Corporation’s waiting list, Prime Minister Kamla-Persad-Bissessar announced yesterday that Government would hold a housing lottery on April 15. Speaking at an HDC key distribution of 100 homes to the differently-abled at SAPA, Saqn Fernando, yesterday, she said that would allow all applicants a fair chance at home ownership despite their circumstances and when they had applied.
“Currently there are over 200,000 applicants on the Ministry of Housing’s database, people who are waiting for houses. Trinidad and Tobago faces a huge shortage of housing units, that is well known,” the PM said. She added: “Around the world, housing citizens has been particularly challenging for all governments and even at home here, while we work to bring housing to low income families and to our young people, and middle income families, we know we must do more.
“In this regard, I wish to announce that on Wednesday April 15, 2015, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will host a random draw for all applicants who are currently on the Ministry of Housing’s database, in accordance with the Cabinet-approved policy of housing allocation.” She said although all applicants could not get housing this year, Government would continue to distribute homes, as the construction of 3,562 new units were already on the way.
After her address, she personally handed over keys to successful applicants, including paraplegic Marcus Ganesh, who lay in his family’s car to collect his keys. Ganesh, a 35-year-old father of one, was paralysed in 2013 after being shot twice in the chest by men who robbed him. After waiting eight years he finally got a home in Cashew Gardens for his family. Persad-Bissessar said when she took office in 2010 there was little support for the differently-abled, at-risk women and children.
She pointed out Felix Jules, a paraplegic for over 20 years, who applied for housing a decade ago; Margaret Peloi, paralysed for the last 17 years and who applied in 1974 for housing and Michael Durham, who has been blind for 26 years and has been awaiting housing for 15 years. Persad-Bissessar also said Government will redevelop East Port-of-Spain with the construction of a series of neighbourhoods that will include arts and cultural spaces, restaurants and other amenities, beginning in September
She said each block was planned to create a neighbourhood unit of approximately 250 to 300 housing units, with a mixture of one, two and three bedroom residences. These will include secured parking, ground and first floor retail, a day care, health clinic, grocery store, community centre, human capital development centre, project co-ordination offices and a cathedral plaza.
Each block will also be anchored by six acres of open green space and recreational areas. She said the project would provide a much needed uplift to the city to fit the new, diversified economy that her Government was now advancing.