T&T’s hous­ing cri­sis is not just per­sis­tent—it is now at a tip­ping point. De­spite of­fi­cial ac­knowl­edge­ments, re­al so­lu­tions re­main elu­sive. With over 200,000 on the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s (HDC) wait­ing list and a pri­vate mar­ket un­af­ford­able to most, home­own­er­ship has be­come a dis­tant dream for work­ing and mid­dle-class fam­i­lies. This cri­sis re­quires im­me­di­ate and com­pre­hen­sive in­ter­ven­tion.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der’s pledge to build 20,000 homes via pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships (PPPs) is billed as a bold mea­sure. How­ev­er, it is but a mod­est re­sponse to a na­tion­al emer­gency. With­out a sweep­ing shift in pol­i­cy, plan­ning, and po­lit­i­cal will, piece­meal ini­tia­tives will fail to stem the cri­sis.

T&T’s hous­ing chal­lenges are root­ed in decades of poor plan­ning, un­der­in­vest­ment, and po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion. Since its in­cep­tion, the HDC and its pre­de­ces­sor, the Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty, have op­er­at­ed un­der a state-cen­tric mod­el fo­cused on build­ing and al­lo­cat­ing hous­ing units. But this mod­el has proven un­sus­tain­able.

State-con­struct­ed homes are of­ten marred by struc­tur­al de­fi­cien­cies, cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions, and in­con­sis­tent qual­i­ty con­trol. Po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence has fur­ther erod­ed pub­lic con­fi­dence, with hous­ing al­lo­ca­tions fre­quent­ly per­ceived as re­wards for par­ty loy­al­ty rather than be­ing dis­trib­uted based on need or mer­it.

Pri­vate de­vel­op­ers, on the oth­er hand, have con­cen­trat­ed their ef­forts on high-in­come hous­ing projects. The re­sult is a glar­ing mis­match be­tween hous­ing sup­ply and de­mand.

The pro­posed PPP mod­el can be part of the so­lu­tion—but on­ly if struc­tured care­ful­ly and im­ple­ment­ed trans­par­ent­ly. The Gov­ern­ment must cre­ate clear, en­force­able guide­lines for af­ford­abil­i­ty, unit qual­i­ty, and lo­ca­tion.

In ad­di­tion, the Gov­ern­ment must widen its de­f­i­n­i­tion of hous­ing be­yond con­struc­tion. Hous­ing se­cu­ri­ty in­cludes tenure, ac­cess to util­i­ties, con­nec­tiv­i­ty to schools, health­care, and pub­lic trans­port. Homes must, there­fore, be built as part of in­clu­sive, re­silient com­mu­ni­ties.

Be­yond con­struc­tion, fi­nanc­ing mech­a­nisms must be mod­ernised. Tra­di­tion­al mort­gages are in­ac­ces­si­ble to many, es­pe­cial­ly con­tract work­ers, low-in­come earn­ers, and young pro­fes­sion­als. In­no­v­a­tive fi­nanc­ing schemes such as rent-to-own, shared eq­ui­ty, hous­ing co­op­er­a­tives, and mi­cro-mort­gages can make home­own­er­ship more at­tain­able.

While hous­ing short­ages ex­ist na­tion­wide, the prob­lem is most acute in ur­ban cen­tres such as Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, and Ch­agua­nas. Years of poor ur­ban plan­ning have left these ar­eas con­gest­ed, ex­pen­sive, and, in some cas­es, ne­glect­ed. How­ev­er, this presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for well-planned ur­ban re­new­al.

Va­cant or di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings in city cen­tres should be re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed in­to af­ford­able hous­ing through gov­ern­ment-sup­port­ed retro­fitting schemes.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the Gov­ern­ment must in­vest in in­fra­struc­ture out­side ma­jor cities—roads, pub­lic trans­port, wa­ter, san­i­ta­tion, health­care, schools—so that rur­al and sub­ur­ban ar­eas be­come at­trac­tive and vi­able places to live and work. Long-term squat­ter reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion, of­fer­ing se­cu­ri­ty of tenure and ba­sic in­fra­struc­ture to fam­i­lies who have oc­cu­pied state land for years, of­ten with no vi­able al­ter­na­tives, must con­tin­ue.

The HDC, as the cen­tral agency tasked with hous­ing de­liv­ery, must al­so be trans­formed, start­ing with digi­ti­sa­tion—an up­dat­ed, ac­ces­si­ble reg­istry of ap­pli­cants, hous­ing stock, con­struc­tion progress, and land al­lo­ca­tions. The opac­i­ty of the cur­rent sys­tem breeds cor­rup­tion, in­ef­fi­cien­cy, and pub­lic dis­trust.

Solv­ing the hous­ing cri­sis re­quires de­ci­sive­ness and re­mov­ing pol­i­tics from de­ci­sions. This is about restor­ing dig­ni­ty and sta­bil­i­ty—and de­liv­er­ing on the na­tion’s most ur­gent need.

The time for short-term schemes is over. What we need now is vi­sion, com­mit­ment, and ac­tion.