Govt to grant titles to long-time estate residents

Thousands of Barbadians living in public housing estates are closer to owning their homes, as a new bill went before Parliament on Tuesday to deliver long-awaited property titles and end decades of legal uncertainty.

Highlighting the “deeply personal” nature of the legislation, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Environment, National Beautification and Fisheries, Santia Bradshaw, rose in the House of Assembly to champion the measure, which seeks to grant immediate ownership to eligible tenants.

Communities ranging from Deacons Farm and Silver Hill to Pinelands are set to see nearly 700 additional conveyances in the immediate future, marking what Bradshaw described as the start of a process she has “advocated for many years.” 

Bradshaw, who represents St Michael South East, home to the island’s largest housing area of Pinelands, Parkinson Field and Wildey, described the initiative as a historic necessity to correct a system that has long “believed in a common truth” but failed to execute it. For years, residents in vulnerable communities have lived without security of tenure — a hurdle Bradshaw said the government is finally overcoming.

For decades, the process of transferring ownership from the state to tenants has been mired in a “slow and complex” legal framework. Bradshaw pointed to telling statistics: of nearly 4 300 eligible units, fewer than 590 have been successfully conveyed over the years.

“The actual ability to execute has not necessarily met the objectives of successive administrations,” Bradshaw noted. She explained that the previous case-by-case legal dependency “boggled the lawyers” and left residents in a state of perpetual uncertainty.

The new legislation takes what she called a “modern and decisive approach” by allowing the state to acquire the properties and immediately vest them in qualifying tenants.

“Today we create history by this simple stroke of the pen… it now allows persons who want to even access educational opportunities for their families… to be able to get some access to financing for the first time.”

While supporting the bill, Bradshaw urged the government to remain mindful of the unique physical challenges within these communities. She noted that because “government has not moved as fast as the people”, many residents have built illegal extensions to accommodate overcrowding, often covering critical sewage lines and wells in their backyards.

“I am not sure that all of these issues in relation to accessibility to key utilities and common services has fully been thought through,” Bradshaw cautioned. She called for a “parallel programme” to align boundaries and upgrade infrastructure, ensuring that utility companies and the National Housing Corporation (NHC) can still access essential services.

Bradshaw framed the bill as a catalyst for behavioural and social transformation. In her view, ownership changes the “outcomes” for families in densely populated areas, providing a sense of pride and a mechanism for the transfer of generational wealth.

“I have seen people… that when you give them the opportunity to even move out of their communities and own a home, all of a sudden they behave differently,” she said. “They can now seat their children at a dining room table… in the comfort of a living room that doesn’t have 15 other people struggling.”

Recognising that many residents in “vulnerable communities” may lack the liquid capital to maintain their newly owned assets, Bradshaw advocated for a suite of supporting measures. She suggested that the Ministry of Finance consider “small accessible loans” to help new homeowners with basic improvements such as paving pathways for the elderly or erecting boundary walls to prevent “disorder”.

Bradshaw said: “To middle-class, upper-class people, a conveyance is a gift from God. To people in vulnerable communities, it is a gift as well, but it also comes with… financial responsibilities that not everybody will have the means to take.”