Extremely vulnerable people who are seeking to benefit from the government’s free housing programme will need to have their own land.
This is according to Minister of Housing Collin Croal who said that the other criteria are still being finalized.
Croal, speaking during an interview with the Department of Public Information, said the programme was being developed in response to appeals from persons who owned land but could not afford to build.
He said potential beneficiaries could include persons unable to work and low-income households with several dependent children.
“The social housing programme will not have a cost to the beneficiary,” Croal said. “They must, however, have the land.”
He said stringent screening would be required because the houses would be financed by taxpayers and should go only to persons genuinely in need.
A contract has already been signed for the supply of houses under the initiative, he said, but disclosed neither its value nor the contractor’s name. He also gave no launch date, the number of houses to be constructed or their cost.
Croal said the programme would operate alongside the government’s existing steel and cement assistance and its proposed foundation-building initiative for beneficiaries receiving prefabricated houses.
The free housing porgramme for the extremely vulnerable was first announced on August 4th by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo in a public outreach at Watooka House in Linden. Croal was also in attendance at the meeting.
According to a video posted on President Irfaan Ali’s Facebook page, Jagdeo said the initiative would target persons who are extremely poor and unable to construct homes themselves.
“We’re launching a programme where, for people who are really destitute, people who have been abandoned by their families, like elderly people who are extremely poor and can’t afford to build, we will build small one-bedroom houses,” he said.
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