Social housing project exceed expectation, says Holness

Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the New Social Housing Programme (NSHP) has surpassed its target of building and handing over 200 housing units for the 2023/2024 fiscal year.

The NSHP was implemented in 2018 as the housing component of the Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment Programme, under the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation.

Holness noted that while the current target has been exceeded, there is still much ground to cover in order to meet the island's social housing needs.

"The programme is doing well, and we have passed the 200 mark, but we have a far way to go. We estimate that there are about 6,000 Jamaicans who need some social housing intervention, so it's going to take some time," he said.

The prime minister was speaking during the social contract signing for a house he handed over to 50-year-old Bertlyn Black in Lancewood, St Elizabeth, on February 21. He said that 150,000 housing units are needed across the island to meet the demand and supply of housing.

"The Government's strategy is to assist the supply side. We have demand side assistance, which comes from subsidised mortgage rates through the National Housing Trust, and that has been very helpful over the years in creating effective demand for housing, but the real issue is the supply - how do we get more housing built - and that is a very complex issue having to do with the supply of land," he pointed out.

Holness said that there is a challenge to find contractors who can build at scale, arguing that contracting capabilities on the island need to be developed.

"We can build 100 or even 1,000 houses. I do believe we have some contractors who can do 10,000 housing solutions, but they couldn't do them back-to-back and all in one go, and we really need to develop the contracting capabilities locally to take on massive housing developments that would move the needle much more quickly," he argued.

"What we are doing is building capacity, and I would say in another five years or so we should have the local contracting capabilities where we can build at scale, 10,000 or more units at a time and that's where we really want to be," Holness added.