RDC facing increased requests for help but “money is only so much”

The Rural Development Commission (RDC) is reporting that it is under “tremendous” pressure to keep up with a rising demand for low-income housing solutions for vulnerable Barbadians.

News of this came to light during an exclusive interview with director Russell Armstrong on Thursday, as Barbados TODAY investigated complaints from a family that has failed to get results in efforts to be rescued from their dire living conditions, even after reaching out to the Welfare Department and the RDC.

Armstrong disclosed that the demand for housing has been so high in recent years that the financial resources of the agency have become stretched.

“Barbados is in a sad state. We have a lot of people who never needed our assistance before, who now need it. So, we are fairly inundated and it’s a sad situation,” he said.

“Even pre-COVID, what we recognised is that the housing stock in Barbados is really not up to standard. That has nothing to do with COVID. The housing stock just generally in the last decade or so… has really degraded a lot, and that is the reason for the increased new homes that you now have to replace.”

Armstrong added: “So, instead of repairs like before, it is like 70 per cent of the homes that we visit require new structures to be built.

I can say that for sure. About 70 per cent of the requests that come in are [for] new structures because of the level of degradation of the housing stock.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the RDC director said, people who previously were not in the income bracket to get assistance were coming forward.

“I would say that a lot of them are still employed, but the challenge is, obviously, the rise in market prices, food and building supplies . . . to even take care of the home . . . . So, the disposable income of households is significantly reduced. So, that is thrusting people into our care in a greater way than before,” he disclosed.

The senior public officer cautioned that the longer this situation continues, the more the housing stock “goes down”, and the more repairs or rebuilding of houses would have to be done. However, he pointed out, “the money is only so much”.

Armstrong said that despite the challenges, the RDC has still been able to do a “good” job as it has been able to assist up to 500 people over the last four years.

Meanwhile, a previously frustrated Nikita Alleyne, a single mother of three who had earlier cried out to the Welfare Department for “urgent” assistance in finding alternative rental accommodation while the RDC worked on plans to rebuild her uninhabitable rat-infested wooden home, was on Thursday evening seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

“I went through so many channels. Everybody talking positive but only for one minute or second after the conversation and telling out my business in order to get help. Then the people disappear and I, having been passed over to other people, [get frustrated]. They just reading the messages [on WhatsApp] and not replying, so I have to be annoying them. I get to the point where I tried not to study it because it’s playing with my brain,” she complained.

However, minutes after the conclusion of the interview with Barbados TODAY, the RDC director was able to engage the mother as well as Deputy Chief Welfare Officer Kim Bobb-Waithe and clear up some issues.

“So, the young lady reached out to me, and we got some things cleared up. We were able to iron out what actually took place. Since then, I reached out to welfare and they are actually trying to assist her. I guess what the problem was, they didn’t have confirmation from anybody else of her situation, but I just confirmed it with them and we are going to coordinate tomorrow and help her out,” Armstrong assured.

“We actually got to the bottom of this situation by you doing your investigative journalism. I spoke with Ms Bobb . . . . She assured me…we are giving her cash grants, we gave her some other things for the house, and the only thing we didn’t give her was the rental because the rental is jampacked with people, because a lot of these people do not have permission to go back to where they were, and the government has to find someplace for them to go,” he highlighted.

Armstrong also told Barbados TODAY that the request for house repairs was made after the start of the fiscal year, but the commission already has Alleyne in its plans for the next financial year for rebuilding the dilapidated house in St Joseph.

Earlier when this media house contacted Bobb-Waithe, she gave the assurance that her department would investigate the matter. emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb