Thir­ty-six fam­i­lies from East Trinidad are the newest re­cip­i­ents of starter homes un­der a spe­cial pro­gramme helmed by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA).

The Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme (HVIP) ini­tia­tive, as the Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment min­istry ex­plains, seeks to im­prove the “liv­ing con­di­tions of fam­i­lies in rur­al and peri-ur­ban spaces who are will­ing to help de­fray costs to the tax­pay­er with labour and fin­ish­ings.”

On Fri­day, June 2, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is MP dis­trib­uted the keys dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Tu­na­puna Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Cen­te­nary Street, Tu­na­puna.

“Mo­ments like this key dis­tri­b­u­tion mo­ti­vate me to want to do even more to ben­e­fit our cit­i­zens,” Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is said.

“It is tru­ly phe­nom­e­nal to see these starter homes re­place sub-stan­dard struc­tures, and to know that fam­i­lies are get­ting homes that are struc­tural­ly sound, safe and that can with­stand nat­ur­al dis­as­ters,” she added.

Mean­while, Chair­man of the Land Set­tle­ment Com­mit­tee (LSA), Wayne In­niss, says the HVIP was de­signed with com­mu­ni­ty sus­tain­abil­i­ty in mind.

“We want the pro­gramme [HVIP] to have a holis­tic im­pact,” he not­ed, “there­fore it is more than sim­ply pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal, fi­nan­cial and so­cial sup­port.”

The LSA Chair­man added: “It is com­mu­ni­ty ori­ent­ed and goes fur­ther than im­prov­ing the phys­i­cal, hu­man and so­cial cap­i­tal as­sets of com­mu­ni­ties. It is geared to­wards sus­tain­abil­i­ty and build­ing pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ships, com­mu­ni­ty com­rade­ship and pride.”

Over the last six years, some 459 fam­i­lies have been housed through the HVIP. In ad­di­tion to the 36 homes hand­ed over on June 2, an­oth­er 84 cur­rent­ly are un­der con­struc­tion.

For 2023, the LSA has tar­get­ed com­mence­ment of con­struc­tion of a to­tal of 275 starter homes in var­i­ous parts of the coun­try.