WESTERN BUREAU:
FULL ACCESS to safe, affordable housing for all Jamaicans by 2025 is the commitment being given by Minister of Housing, Transport and Works Robert Pickersgill.
"Housing represents a key engine of the wealth of most households," Mr. Pickersgill said while addressing delegates at the opening ceremony of the Caribbean Association of Housing Finance Institutions and Inter-American Housing Union Shelter Conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Monday.
"To this end housing has always been the focus of social concern. As a Government we are committed to ensuring that by 2025 all our people will have access to affordable, safe and legal housing solutions," he said.
The conference, conducted under the theme 'Challenges of the Housing Market in the 21st Century', closed yesterday and facilitated presentations from representatives of the World Bank, the Caribbean Develop-ment Bank, and the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) Secretariat.
Delegates in attendance included mortgage and retail bankers, credit and risk managers, urban planners, insurance companies, real estate developers and housing finance and securities regulators.
The Housing Minister detailed several strategies that will be utilised to meet the ambitious objective:
Improvements to the current legislative framework for housing
Increased Joint Venture Partnerships,
The provision of tenure security through divestment and titling programmes
Increased collaboration between housing and approval agencies
A reactivation of the secondary mortgage market and squatter regularisation.
POLICY DECISIONS
"So far several policy decisions are being considered and include the identification of low interest funds to put infrastructure at squatter regularisation sites and the development of a comprehensive policy to address squatting in an effort to ensure that we halt this pervasive problem," he said.
Mr. Pickersgill commented that, while homeownership might not be a viable alternative for many individuals, it was also the intention to stimulate private sector investment in the rental market.
"Increasingly, we are realising the tremendous impact that housing has on critical areas such as economic development, poverty alleviation and environmental management and the various and complex kinds of inter-linkages that exist," he contended. "Governments are now accepting that housing cannot be perceived solely as a welfare issue and that the housing sector must be managed as a key component to the overall economy."
