Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Hous­ing Min­istry is re­vamp­ing the way peo­ple ap­ply for homes through the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), in­tro­duc­ing a pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem to bet­ter match ap­pli­cants with hous­ing they can af­ford.

At the same time, the Min­istry is as­sess­ing in­com­plete, un­al­lo­cat­ed, or re­port­ed­ly “aban­doned” HDC units with a view to re­turn­ing them to the na­tion­al hous­ing stock.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der, shared these up­dates dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed yes­ter­day. He spoke fol­low­ing na­tion­al bud­get con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents of Port-of-Spain, Laven­tille, and St Ann’s East at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Alexan­der re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment is al­so in “very heavy con­ver­sa­tions” with con­sor­tiums, con­trac­tors, and pri­vate-sec­tor in­vestors to pur­sue pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships aimed at meet­ing its tar­get of build­ing 20,000 homes dur­ing this term.

The all-day bud­get con­sul­ta­tion drew res­i­dents seek­ing help with hous­ing, jobs, and oth­er con­stituen­cy is­sues. Among those who raised con­cerns was Nicol­lette Huges of Pash­ley Street, who rep­re­sent­ed 21 fam­i­lies dis­placed by a land­slide in 2022. She said the area was deemed un­safe for re­build­ing and that ef­forts to se­cure al­ter­na­tive hous­ing through the HDC had so far failed. Ac­cord­ing to Huges, both for­mer MPs for Laven­tille, Fitzger­ald Hinds and Adri­an Leonce, had ac­knowl­edged their con­cerns, but no tan­gi­ble help was pro­vid­ed.

“Hinds promised to fol­low up, which un­for­tu­nate­ly hasn’t ma­te­ri­alised. Leonce said land would be made avail­able for re­set­tle­ment, but that re­mains a long-term hope,” she said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to al­low cit­i­zens to oc­cu­py and re­pair un­al­lo­cat­ed or aban­doned HDC prop­er­ties.

Re­spond­ing to these con­cerns, Alexan­der said the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had built 4,700 homes but ad­mit­ted that frus­tra­tions re­main with how ap­pli­ca­tions are han­dled.

“What’s caus­ing the most stress is that ap­pli­ca­tions end up in draw­ers. We found that un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion, hous­es were be­ing dis­trib­uted by min­is­te­r­i­al al­lo­ca­tion,” he said.

“If you knew the Min­is­ter, you could get a house. The PNM’s ‘ran­dom draw’ was a lie. Keys for Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers were tak­en back af­ter be­ing dis­trib­uted. There are 210,000 names on that list.”

Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged the ur­gency of hous­ing for vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens like Huges and her com­mu­ni­ty.

“We’ve heard hor­rif­ic sto­ries. We’re try­ing to find spaces, short of putting up tents in the Sa­van­nah. But we are go­ing to build hous­es. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has man­dat­ed us to con­struct 20,000 homes—and we will.”

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the event, Alexan­der said the Min­istry is ex­plor­ing fund­ing through pri­vate-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“We’re in se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions with con­sor­tiums, con­trac­tors, and busi­ness lead­ers. We want to bring them in­to pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships.”

He em­pha­sised that ap­pli­cants will soon be re­quired to pre-qual­i­fy.

“That way, we know the val­ue of the home you can af­ford and can start set­ting that in mo­tion. If you qual­i­fy for a home worth $800,000, you should have it with­in two years.”

Asked how the Gov­ern­ment will pre­vent pref­er­en­tial treat­ment for Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) af­fil­i­ates or “friends and fam­i­ly,” Alexan­der said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made it clear there will be no ex­cess­es or cor­rup­tion.

“She’s told min­is­ters they can­not buy ex­pen­sive cars. This is go­ing to be a dif­fer­ent Gov­ern­ment. Homes won’t be hand­ed out like jub jubs. There will be a trans­par­ent pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem, and those who meet the cri­te­ria will re­ceive hous­es in short or­der.”

He added that the Min­istry is cur­rent­ly map­ping out how many homes will be con­struct­ed in the first year of the term.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about un­al­lo­cat­ed or in­com­plete HDC prop­er­ties, Alexan­der clar­i­fied: “They’re not ex­act­ly aban­doned. They ex­ist, but many re­main un­fin­ished. We’re in­ves­ti­gat­ing and will rein­tro­duce them in­to the hous­ing stock so cit­i­zens are treat­ed fair­ly.”

Oth­er is­sues raised dur­ing the con­sul­ta­tion in­clud­ed noise pol­lu­tion. Re­tired pub­lic ser­vant Manohar Singh said the Gov­ern­ment needs to take ac­tion not just against bars and fetes but al­so against res­i­dents play­ing loud mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly from ve­hi­cles. He not­ed that po­lice of­fi­cers of­ten point the mat­ter to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), and vice ver­sa, with lit­tle res­o­lu­tion.

Can­cer pa­tient Pa­tri­cia Lash­ley al­so called for the long-de­layed con­struc­tion of the On­col­o­gy Cen­tre and pro­posed that un­used com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres be con­vert­ed in­to well­ness fa­cil­i­ties for se­nior cit­i­zens.