Morris calls for informal settlements to be upgraded

WESTERN BUREAU:

Senator Floyd Morris, the opposition spokesman on housing and sustainable living, is proposing that at least 30 per cent of the $11.4 billion annually extracted from the National Housing Trust (NHT) be set aside to upgrade informal settlements.

Morris made the call while addressing a World Habitat Day conference hosted by the Community Organisation for Management and Sustainable Development (COMAND), led by O. Dave Allen at the S Hotel in Montego Bay.

Morris said the funds should be used to provide basic infrastructure such as roads, drainage, retaining walls and water systems in occupied communities.

“I have stated in the Senate that the NHT is subject to an annual extraction of $11.4 billion towards the national Budget. This extraction must be capped and at least 30 per cent of that should be ring-fenced for settlement upgrading for drains, retaining walls, roads, and water in the communities where people already live,” Morris said.

He questioned why Jamaica continues to have so many informal settlements still exist, despite the NHT’s housing achievements.

“If the NHT has been so successful, why do we have over 700 informal settlements in Jamaica in 2026? Why do approximately 30 per cent of our people still live without secure tenure?” he asked.

“The answer is simple: we have a mortgage policy, not a housing and settlement policy. And a mortgage policy will never serve the people where more than 50 per cent of the workforce is informally employed,” he said.

Morris further argued that the government must recognise the organisation already taking place within informal communities rather than treating residents primarily as people to be removed.

“I have visited communities from Southside in Kingston to Norwood right here in St James to Steer Town in St Ann. What I have found is some semblance of order. The community has organised itself. They have allocated lots. They have kept space for the church or the basic school and for the playing field,” he said.

“That is what COMAND calls community organisation for management and sustainable development. The people have planned their settlement. The State has not planned with them,” said Morris. “We must stop seeing informal settlers as squatters to be evicted, and start seeing them as community managers to be supported.”

Morris also proposed a return to the incremental housing approach used in Jamaica decades ago, in which the government provided land and infrastructure while residents built their homes progressively.

“The low-income Jamaican does not need a finished house. They need three things: secure tenure, infrastructure, and building support,” he said. “I am proposing that we return to that model, but with community in charge. Government provides the land and infrastructure, the community manages the allocation, and the NHT provides a 2.5-million material loan, not a $9-million mortgage that a higgler, or a fisherfolk, or craft vendor, or a person with a disability can never afford.”

“Let us finance the slabs, the blocks, and the roof, and let families build at their own pace,” he added.

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