Emergency housing to be increased, says Gibbs

Housing Minister Chris Gibbs has signalled his intention to create emergency housing stock in this island for citizens displaced by hurricanes and other events.

Speaking at his constituency branch meeting at the St Leonard’s Boys’ School on Sunday evening, the representative for St Michael West said it was part of his mandate to increase the stock of emergency housing in Barbados.

“Right now, we are formulating the designs and finalising the designs on all kinds of innovative ways in which we could increase our emergency housing stock in this country, because we know what happened in Jamaica with (Hurricane) Melissa.

“We have been pretty blessed so far. I mean, we had Elsa, we had a freak storm, and we had fires, but we have been blessed in this country and we don’t know how long that will last. So it is up to me and my team to increase the stock of emergency housing. So that is something that the Cabinet is working on. The Prime Minister is spearheading, and I will be doing so as her pick for the Minister of Housing in Parliament,” Gibbs said.

Last month, the minister indicated that work to address structural issues at the decade-old Grotto housing complex would soon commence. 

“What we have done in these estimates this financial year, we have set aside some money so that we could do right by the existing estates of this country, so that those people can live dignified lives and one of the first projects that we’re going to tackle is the Grotto. 

“Now we know that there have been issues there with parking; the design that was implemented, the parking was inadequate. The lighting, which we continue to address for security, because we know that all across the estates we want our clients to be safe, and secure,’ Gibbs said.

“In addition to that, we will also be addressing the leaks that are occurring as well. We’ve done the research, and we went back and forth with the different types of solution and sealants that we can use. So we’ve settled on that and we will be sealing those roofs, making them more resilient for any type of disasters, and even with the rain that we get every now and again. 

The minister also disclosed that a similar undertaking was on the cards for Country Park Towers and Kensington Lodge.

“We’re also going to go to Kensington Lodge and we’re going to address Country Park Towers and these three areas and estates are the ones that we’re going to start with,” Gibbs said, stating that more estates will be added at a later date.

Acknowledging that many persons had their land compulsorily acquired by government but had not been compensated, some for decades, the minister said his administration was addressing the issue.

“We’ve had too many compulsory acquisitions where small people have not been compensated. We’ve already begun to right that wrong. We’re talking about acquisitions that happened 40 years ago. We had a lady who had lost a piece of her land to a bus lay-by and was never compensated. That was 40 years ago. 

“So we brought that to the Cabinet and we were able to compensate that lady after nearly 40 years. It’s about social justice. It’s not only about building houses. So that is part of my tremendous mandate in housing,” Gibbs said.

(JB)