Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to al­lo­cate a per­cent­age of the 20,000 hous­ing units it plans to build to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Their re­quest fol­lowed Sun­day’s pre-bud­get con­sul­ta­tion in Port-of-Spain, in which Min­is­ter in the Hous­ing Min­istry Phillip Alexan­der re­vealed that the Prime Min­is­ter has man­dat­ed the con­struc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of 20,000 homes over the gov­ern­ment’s five-year term.

Com­mend­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s hous­ing com­mit­ment, the TTB­WA, in a re­lease, said the ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step to­ward ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s long­stand­ing hous­ing chal­lenges and demon­strates the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to eq­ui­ty, dig­ni­ty, and an im­proved qual­i­ty of life for all cit­i­zens.

The re­lease, sent by ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ken­neth Suratt, stat­ed, “As this pro­gramme un­folds, the TTB­WA strong­ly urges the Min­istry of Hous­ing to en­sure that per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties are recog­nised as a dis­tinct and pri­or­i­ty group, sep­a­rate from the el­der­ly, in the al­lo­ca­tion of hous­ing units.

It is vi­tal that na­tion­al hous­ing pol­i­cy re­flect the di­ver­si­ty of needs with­in the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing those of per­sons who are blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired, whether they were born blind or ac­quired vi­sion loss lat­er in life.”

Not­ing that many vi­su­al­ly im­paired cit­i­zens con­tin­ued to face sys­temic bar­ri­ers to in­de­pen­dent liv­ing and eco­nom­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion, he said ac­ces­si­ble and af­ford­able hous­ing is a crit­i­cal step in em­pow­er­ing them to live full, au­tonomous lives.

The TTB­WA, he not­ed, has over the years sub­mit­ted the names of blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired peo­ple who have been on pub­lic hous­ing wait­lists—some for decades—but many of them are still await­ing keys.

“In this re­gard, we re­spect­ful­ly call on the Min­istry of Hous­ing to dis­ag­gre­gate per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties from the el­der­ly in its hous­ing da­ta and poli­cies. Des­ig­nate a fair and mea­sur­able per­cent­age of hous­ing units specif­i­cal­ly for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. Pri­ori­tise ap­pli­cants al­ready iden­ti­fied through as­so­ci­a­tions such as the TTB­WA, who have long await­ed a re­sponse.”

Suratt ex­plained that pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate hous­ing to per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties is not on­ly a mat­ter of jus­tice and in­clu­sion but al­so a ful­fil­ment of the gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to up­hold the rights of all cit­i­zens.

When con­tact­ed, Min­is­ter Alexan­der con­firmed that the Prime Min­is­ter had man­dat­ed spe­cif­ic group­ings of peo­ple for spe­cial at­ten­tion. He said, “As a min­istry, this is some­thing that line Min­is­ter the Ho­n­ourable David Lee, is pi­lot­ing be­cause it forms part of a wider man­date from the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who gave us spe­cif­ic group­ings of per­sons for spe­cial at­ten­tion, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, the el­der­ly, law en­force­ment, pub­lic ser­vants and young pro­fes­sion­als, to name a few.”