THE HOUSING
Agency
ofJamaica
EMBRACES SUSTAINABILITY
N
o new program is perfect from the first. There’s always a warmup period where procedures are tried and changed, contractors tested, and the depth of the problem tackled is gradually discovered. Usually, once enough information has been gathered, the program requires reorganisation and a kind of “starting over.” That time for the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) was fiscal year 2013-14. The HAJ is a government department within Jamaica’s Ministry of Transport, Works & Housing. It’s headquarters are located in Kingston, and it has two other branches in Montego Bay and Savanna-la-Mar. The program exists to provide property development and housing construction for low and lower middle income earners - to relieve the immense problems Jamaica’s “squatter” or “informal settler” communities are having with poverty, drugs, and violence - to give settlers a chance at home ownership for the first time in their lives.
Jamaica is not the only Caribbean country experiencing squatter problems. Nearly all former and current British territories in the Caribbean have had them. As a pattern, expatriates purchase the best rural lands to live on (or build tourist attractions), while locals move into the cities where the work is, and built houses out of scrounged materials on unused urban land. Some live under bridges or on private beaches owned by others. Seldom do workers have land of their own. In Jamaica 35% of the citizens currently live at the poverty level. Of those, 56% are employed at some kind of job. 49% of the poor are children, which means some of them are working too. While most of Jamaica’s existing infrastructure was developed to accommodate tourism, it has provided access to reasonably clean drinking water for 98% of the population and sanitation facilities for 99%. On the other hand, only 24% of the population has electricity. Jamaica is not the only Caribbean country experiencing squatter problems. Nearly all former and current British territories in the Caribbean have had them. As a pattern, expatriates purchase the best rural lands to live on (or build tourist attractions), while locals move into the cities where the work is, and built houses out of scrounged materials on unused urban land. Some live under bridges
In Jamaica
35%
of the citizens currently live at the
poverty level.
Of those, 56% are employed at some kind of job. 49% of the poor are children, which means some of them are working too. While most of Jamaica’s existing infrastructure was developed to accommodate tourism, it has provided access to reasonably clean drinking water for 98% of the population and sanitation facilities for 99%. On the other hand, only 24% of the population has electricity. According to the publication “Housing & Urban Management in the Caribbean,� published by the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, a dysfunctional land allocation system is mainly to blame. Jamaica has attempted to counteract that problem by developing a land titling program that reallocates government-owned land, giving titles and ownership to those informal settlers currently living on the land. If the land is not viable for healthy housing, the settlers are moved to other public lands and given title to land there.
MAKING IT WORK The Housing Agency of Jamaica was established in 1998 by merging three housing corporations into one agency. Formerly called the National Housing Development Corporation, it changed its name in 2008 to the Housing Agency of Jamaica. The year 2013 proved to be an exceptionally challenging one for HAJ, in both positive and negative ways. Under its “Operation Pride” program, the agency registered 1,500 land titles for 45 communities in 11 parishes island-wide, and it resettled residents from two additional settlements to locations of future development. It also struggled with lenders reluctant to provide low-cost loans, low income earners who could not afford mortgages, unreliable construction companies, and suspected “leakages” that added to the financial drain. The cost of the program was negatively affecting the rest of the economy. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the work, the daily life of HAJ employees had become pretty depressing, further affecting the department’s overall efficiency and relationships with the public. This all came to a head during the 2013-14 fiscal year and caused a crisis that the agency faced head-on in 2014.
DEPARTMENT
REORGANISATION In 2014 the Cabinet reorganised HAJ’s eight member Board of Directors - three men and two
women meeting at least once a month. After fielding internal and external complaints about housing program progress, the HAJ called in an outside consultant to help reorganise and revitalise the program. They set up an internal evaluation committee and started holding focus groups out in the communities, which resulted in a new mission statement and business strategy, public relations plans, and realistic annual goals.
that, “We must and will step up to the greater demands and expectations of the Jamaican people.” HAJ regularly experiences environmental setbacks, as well as misunderstandings by potential homeowners about what the program entails. This year there were repeated floods in the Hills of the Boscobel development area, where half the homes were inhabited, while the other half were still being built. The floods created problems with infrastructure that needed to be addressed. In addition, many potential homeowners misunderstand the program, thinking that these are giveaway homes that need no commitment from them. HAJ seeks to better inform the public on what their own commitments to homeownership must be, including mortgage repayments tof however much the homeowner can afford.
HAJ determined that the department’s focus for the 2014-15 fiscal year would be on financial sustainability and the completion of outstanding projects. Those projects resulted in the issuance of 3,000 new titles. Now they’re training staff to increase customer service skills and morale via monthly team-building exercises. In the agency’s 2014-15 Annual Report, Managing Director H. Karl Bennett declared
There is a remaining issue to be addressed - that of the lowest income people without jobs, who cannot afford to buy anything. In the words of Housing Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, “If we don’t seek to address the housing needs of those at the bottom of the income ladder, they will address these needs themselves. You don’t have to theorise about it — you see it.”
COMMUNITY
SUPPORT The lack of housing in Jamaica presents a danger to the environment, lowering the quality of life for all Jamaicans living near squatter settlements. It’s also a danger to the economy, especially when it negatively impacts the tourist trade, which is a major income earner for Jamaica. While the HAJ organises projects, it’s the private companies that actually build them. The government tells its prospective settlers and developers that they must build in compliance with government regulations and not degrade the environment further. Each development includes paved roadways, a potable water supply system, drainage, sewage collection and electricity for individual lots. Those companies currently building housing projects for HAJ are: Alcar Construction & Haulage, NF Barnes Construction & Equipment, Seal Construction, & Buildrite Construction Company. Infrastructure that supports a housing community includes water and sewer lines, roads, and other types of construction like electric lines. Here are some of the companies that build infrastructure for the HAJ: J&H Construction Solutions (roads), COMPLANT (water and sewer systems), FSC Construction (drainage and sewer works), DR Foote Construction (infrastructure and sanitary facilities), and Ashtrom Building Systems.
Whenever a settlement is complete enough for people to move in, the housing department holds a group title ceremony. There HAJ representatives hand out ownership titles and enjoin the newly entitled to fulfil their own responsibilities to the public in return - to pay property taxes, form and maintain a good citizens association, and take care of the community to prevent crime and violence. The HAJ assigns a staff member to work alongside emerging community leaders to help them become the community they have envisioned. In this way each new community can contribute to the development of the country and help pull it out of poverty.
Housing Agency of Jamaica Limited 13 Caledonia Avenue P.O. Box 701, Kingston 5 Jamaica Tel: (876) 968-7522-4 Fax: (876) 929-5908 www.hajl.gov.jm
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