‘150 houses by May’

By May 2025 all 150 of the East-West houses should be completed says Minister of Housing Dwight Sutherland.

He gave that projection yesterday during the official opening of Solaris Court at Whitepark Road, St Michael.

During the opening, he provided an update on Government’s 10 000 homes project including the steel housing units being constructed by Chinese labourers through the East-West Project.

So far, 95 out of the 150 houses that were promised in 2021 have been completed with 16 located at the Solaris Court.

“Over a three-year period, a total of 1 337 housing solutions were provided. Of these, the public sector accounted for 974 and the private sector accounted for 349 housing solutions. The provision of housing solutions by the public sector was attained under the East-West Project, HOPE Inc, NHCs Joint Venture programme, the Hurricane Elsa project and the Ministry’s Relocation Projects.

“Solaris Court is one of the sites that fall under the East-West project. This project will see the provision of 150 housing solutions, inclusive of single detached units, quadruplexes (quads) and duplexes. To date, 95 housing solutions have been completed under this project, inclusive of 23 housing solutions to persons impacted by Hurricane Elsa at various locations,” Sutherland said.

He also said another 22 units were at various stages of completion at Bullens, St James, Sargeants Village, Christ Church and River Crescent, St Philip.

“The remaining 33 units (25 foundations) will be constructed at Dodds North and are projected to be completed by May

2025. These units will be offered for sale through the National Housing Corporation,” he added.

During the opening, he recalled that the project was heavily scrutinised, noting they did the best they could despite the supply chain and expertise challenges.

“We stood at Haggatt Hall and we were carried through a gruesome exercise by the media. At that time we had no Chinese labour. We were trying to get Chinese labour. We tried to get labour out of South East Asia and we didn’t achieve that. Visas were an issue. There was an increase in cost as result of these challenges and setbacks we had.

“We had to train our local contractors and that is why the project took so long. Then we had issues with supply chain management. I said that back then at that time we only had 23 built,” he added.

NHC officials including general manager Ian Gill and Member of Parliament for the City Corey Lane were among those who attended the opening.

Lane said the housing increase was welcomed and he encouraged the NHC team to continue this work.

In addition to victims of Hurricane Elsa, five families who lost their homes to the fire at Wellington Street were relocated to Solaris Court.

Among them were Charmaine Mars, Francesca Cornibert-Daniel and Sandra Nurse.

“It is better than living in the road. I am thankful,” Nurse said. (TG)

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