​​​RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment has suc­cess­ful­ly re­quest­ed a $100 mil­lion in­vest­ment to­wards the con­struc­tion of starter homes un­der the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme.

This was dis­closed by the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, Adri­an Leonce, dur­ing a key dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA).

Leonce was de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture re­marks on be­half of the line min­is­ter, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who was ab­sent for the cer­e­mo­ny. The event was held in the au­di­to­ri­um of the Gov­ern­ment Plaza Cam­pus. in Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

Six­ty-six fam­i­lies were giv­en keys to their own starter homes, just in time for the Christ­mas sea­son.

Leonce said the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme ini­tial­ly start­ed with a $28 mil­lion in­vest­ment.

“The fund­ing has gone from $28 mil­lion in fis­cal 2022 to $58 mil­lion in fis­cal 2023 to now $100 mil­lion in fis­cal 2024 be­cause we see the dif­fer­ence it makes in the lives of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries,” he said.

He added that the gov­ern­ment’s aim is to ac­com­mo­date more fam­i­lies un­der the pro­gramme and merge the in­creas­ing cost of con­struc­tion with a bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion of $100 mil­lion.

The LSA is set to com­plete the con­struc­tion of 600 units in 28 com­mu­ni­ties across T&T.