Residents with storm-damaged homes urged to help themselves

Minister of Housing Lands and Maintenance Dr William Duguid is appealing to Barbadians whose homes were damaged by the freak storm or Hurricane Elsa in 2021 to apply for materials to facilitate their own repairs.

On Monday, during the handing over of three new houses to two residents in St Lucy and one in St Philip, Minister Duguid said that while the Government through the relevant agencies is working around the clock to get hundreds of houses damaged by the weather systems rebuilt and repaired, affected residents can aid in reducing that backlog through getting their own workmen.

Dr Duguid said all residents have to do is to apply to have the damages assessed by the Urban Development Commission (UDC) and Rural Development Commission (RDC).

He said that while Government has only been able to rebuild 13 houses thus far, over 220 people have gotten materials from the Ministry of Housing to facilitate their own repairs.

“And if more and more people who have had damage who can come forward and say that they will get their carpenter or mason or tradesmen to do their repairs for them and they just need a list of materials send that to us and we will assist,” Dr Duguid said.

The minister also indicated that Government has done 124 repairs to houses damaged by Hurricane Elsa. However, he explained that authorities have been experiencing challenges with the rebuild and have been denied access to lands due to legal complications.

“Many people are renting land and from time to time we find that the landlords don’t give permission or they have difficulty getting access or have difficulty getting their land papers and getting the permission for us to use the land.

“Apart from that, what we are now finding is access to materials and even access to tools because of the shipping logistic problems that we are seeing internationally we are having some difficulties with tools.

“And now we have issues accessing some contractors, as we are starting to do some of the foundations for our other programme because we have so many programmes going on and so many houses being rebuilt or repaired at this time, that even access to workmen is now becoming a problem,” Dr Duguid said. (AH)