The previous article continued my Season of Reflection by exposing yet another counterfactual, the myth that the Trinidad and Tobago Housing Development Corporation (HDC) builds affordable housing as required by our Housing Policy (2002) and the HDC Act (2005).
Any basic examination of the facts reveals that the majority of the HDC’s output of new homes are not affordable. I estimated that un-affordable majority as being virtually 80% of the new homes produced for HDC.
The official silence is eloquent and damning. Except that officials are not always silent, so let me share a short social encounter last week with a high-ranking housing official. That official took the astonishing step of telling me that I did not know what I was writing about and that even the information I was relying on was incorrect. When I pointed out that my work is all based on the HDC’s data, checked and supplied by its authorised officers, the conversation took an even more bizarre turn, well beyond the scope of this article. Continue reading “Property Matters – Affordability and Legality part two”
Although the HDC is the State’s main implementing agency for its housing policy, there are other important elements to be considered. The main one I will examine here is the role of public subsidy in the housing program.
AfraRaymond.net 