Housing solutions for low-income owners ‘to change’

Changes are coming to the way housing solutions are greenlit for Barbadians, as Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Monday a multidisciplinary approach is now needed.

She stressed that housing solutions for low-income earners cannot be funded alone by direct cash injections from Government, but instead, a multipronged approach is needed to make all aspects of housing affordable to citizens.

Mottley said: “We need to be able to make sure that we can have an aggressive programme that is premised not on government’s balance sheet alone but is premised also on Government using its enabling and empowering powers, to be able to put people together with people who have access to mortgages, in order to be able to purchase their own properties. I say that to say to you, that you will probably find a multidisciplinary approach to the provision of housing in this country.”

Mottley also mentioned, that projects being facilitated by HOPE inc; which was created back in 2020 to build housing that will be serviced by solar photovoltaic panels on their roof to bring costs down, will help pave the way to make more affordable housing solutions for Barbadians in jobs paying less than $4000 a month.

She explained: “Therefore what we have tried to do, is to be able to reduce the cost of capital, reduce the cost of land, reduce the cost of construction, and reduce the cost of development of services, so that by having four different reductions coming from different angles, that you make housing more affordable for the average policeman, for the average teacher, the average nurse, especially single parents in this country.”

With the inclusion of the solar panels on these homes, the new homeowners would be able to earn a second income by selling stored energy back into the grind, according to Mottley.

The PM added: “By putting the photovoltaic panels on their house and allowing them to assign the revenue benefits such that they do not have to pay a cent for the purchase of the land, because the value of the land has been taken care of by the revenue to come over the 15 years, from the photovoltaic panels.  That is how this government is trying to make it affordable for ordinary people to have housing in this country.”

The Prime Minister also revealed, that the present administration was already in the process of outlining plans to make derelict homes that would have been previously been built for low-income housing, available for purchase at significantly reduced rates for single parents, who may have the means and funds to make the necessary repairs.

The PM declared: “What we have said, is rather than trying to fix it up fully and doing all of those things, discount it heavily, and sell it to single parents, who invariably can get their families to help do some of the repairs, but when you have dropped the price by about $65, 000, there is more than enough in there for them to buy what has to be bought and to get their families to fix it up. Rather than leaving these houses empty, and then having the situation of single parents fighting to find somewhere to live in this country.”
(SB)