244 homes handed over in housing programme

The Government has so far handed over 244 homes under the New Social Housing Programme (NSHP), impacting close to 900 Jamaicans.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in making the disclosure during a NSHP presentation ceremony in Lodgie Green district in Grantham, Clarendon, last Friday, said that "in total, between units handed over and those in varying stages of construction, we are at about 280 units".

"We hope that by the end of the year, we will be somewhere just over 300 units handed over and in various stages of construction," he said. Beneficiary Leta Williams received the keys to a two-bedroom house built at a cost of $5.9 million.

"Leta lived in a broken-down house. You really couldn't call it a house. It is a shack with a roof that is leaking like a sieve and a structure that is about to collapse," Holness said. He noted that provisions were made for the proper disposal of sewage and storage of water.

"The convenience couldn't have come at a better time because during Hurricane Beryl, Leta's house, which is just a few feet away, she had to abandon that and take up refuge here," he pointed out. Williams will share the home with her daughter and 89-year-old mother, who was in hospital during the handover ceremony. Her mother has a heart condition suffers from kidney failure and shortness of breath.

"Thank you all. I'm very grateful. God bless you all," Williams said.

Four houses were handed over on Friday. The other beneficiaries are Lorna Samuels from Top Alston, Samuel Brown of Cow

Pen district in Frankfield, and George Brown from Gloucester in Thompson Pen.