POPULATION-JAMAICA: Making Home Sweet Home a Reality

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sam Pragg

KINGSTON, May 21 1998 (IPS) - Ever heard the saying, a person’s home is his or her castle? Well with many Jamaicans feeling that the opportunity of becoming a king in their own castle will never come their way through the right channel, many are resorting to illegal ways of making this dream a reality.

It is not unusual these days therefore to see dozens of houses going up on lands which once belonged to the government or private owners, with these persons having no legal claim to these lands. Squatting is becoming a major problem here as people feel the crunch of harsh economic times and affordable housing become more and more out of the reach of thousands.

More than one million of Jamaica’s 2.5 million people live in and around the capital city. Kingston continues to draw people from the rural areas, as they look for work in the big city. In the last few years rental rates, particularly in this area of the country, have skyrocketed.

One-bedroom flats are advertised for up to 700 dollars per month depending on the location, while three-bedroom flats tend to start at 1,500 dollars per month. In the more affluent parts of Kingston, some three-bedroom houses are rented for 2,000 dollars per month.

Purchasing a house is even more out of the question for many, as prices are in the millions of Jamaican dollars range (one US dollar equals 36 Jamaican dollars).

Kingston is the worst-case scenario as far as the exorbitant rents are concerned, but the situation is replicated to only a slightly lesser extent in the tourist resorts of Montego Bay,. Ocho Rios and Negril, which are attracting many unemployed Jamaicans in search of new opportunities. The challenge is finding somewhere for these people to live when they descend on these communities.

Such is the case of 28 year-old secretary, Diane Thompson. “Right now, I have to find a space with my sister in her house, but the conditions are terrible,” she says.. “I can’t get any peace in that house.”

Thompson currently lives in a two-bedroom house with her three- year old son. Her sister’s family includes a husband, two small children, one teenaged daughter, and a teenaged cousin..

“My salary is not that great, and I didn’t want to use it all up on rent,” adds 32-year old hotel waitress Janice Miller, who works in Montego Bay. “So, I just found a piece of land in Flankers, and I’m building a house there.” Surveys conducted by the Greater Montego Bay Redevelopment Company (GMRC) found that one in four houses in Montego Bay and its environs were squatter developments.

In many of these settlements there are no sanitary facilities or running water. Environmentalists say squatters have denuded hillsides, destroyed watershed areas ad contributed to the spread of diseases by their unhygienic way of living. The Jamaican government also maintains that the conditions existing in many of the squatter settlements are contributing to the degradation of the environment and cannot be allowed to continue.

Furthermore the government says the lands which have been lying idle for decades prompting landless, homeless people to move on and set up house, are now being identified as prime agricultural lands which have been earmarked for development.

Dr. Coy Grandison, manager of the enforcement unit at the Housing and Environment Ministry, says about 15 percent of the population could be classified as squatters. The government has stated that it will be taking a hard line towards squatting.

“We certainly won’t be able to uproot all squatters around the island, but there are 100,000 problem squatters, including those on joint venture holdings. Those we will be certainly getting rid of. Our policy is to prevent new squatting,” says Grandison.

Recently when the government attempted to destroy squatter houses in Retirement, a planned housing development just outside of Montego Bay, the squatters blocked roads, demonstrated and threw missiles at government vehicles, and the demolition had to be aborted.

“They can’t come into our area and mash up my house,” says 40- year old mason Ulric Smith. “If they do that, we going mash down Montego Bay. This is my land, and my house, and nobody is going to take it away from me.”

Since that abortive attempt at the beginning of the year, dozens more squatter houses have gone up in Retirement, and the government seems almost powerless to stop this growth. And when one private developer forcibly removed some informal settlements in Flankers, the squatters marched on Montego Bay, set up roadblocks, and burned his office in the tourist city.

The practice of capturing government land for residential and commercial purposes, observers say, date back to the time of slavery But over the last 30 years as the price of property has moved steadily out of the reach of the population’s poor, more and more people have simply taken up residence on state lands.

In recent years, government’s policies which adversely affect the poor have been blamed for the steady rise in squatter communities. For instance, some say government’s action of hiking taxes on building materials and the rapid movement in interest rates at lending institutions as well as exorbitant property taxes ensure that the poor will never be able to own property in Jamaica.

Over the last few years property tax has increased by up to 1,000 percent and the interest on loans range from between 25 and 50 percent.