Application backlog at NHC to be dealt with in another week

The backlog of in excess of 25 000 housing applications at the National Housing Corporation (NHC) is slated to be addressed in a week’s time.

This assurance was given by Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland as he spoke in St Joseph on Tuesday during the start of an informal series of talks with citizens, Parish Speaks.

Asked by a resident about the long wait for responses from the NHC after submitting applications, Sutherland acknowledged that the current situation was untenable but said it would soon be addressed.

“To tell the public the real truth, we have over 25 000 applicants in terms of backlog…. What we are doing is that we have a project, we have a team, and I am proud to report that we have started a project and I have said to the Prime Minister that in a week’s time we will be addressing that backlog,” the Housing Minister disclosed.

He said once the backlog was updated, there will be an expansion of the housing solutions on offer.

“We will categorise in the income brackets, those who are unemployed, those persons who are earning between $1 000 to $2 000 net income, those between $2 000 to $4 000 net income, and those above. The vulnerable – those persons earning below the threshold – we’ll offer to you rent-to-own, and that is why we are pushing the envelope, and that is why we are calling it the silent revolution.

“When we build 20 000 houses, those 25 000 applicants, let’s say 80 per cent, [can] have the opportunity to own their own home in whatever bracket you fall in. So, within a week’s time, we’ll have that project completed, and a paper will go to Cabinet offering housing solutions in the various categories.”

Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who was also part of the informal talk, said Government continues to look at multiple solutions to address the lack of housing.

“NHC almost had a form of cardiac arrest with respect to the applicants and the backlog, because if you keep adding applications and adding and adding without cleaning the list, what do you have?

“Government is looking at multiple solutions, because we can’t only have a single approach to satisfy what is, in effect, over 20 000 people who want houses in this country,” the Prime Minister said. (SB)