Ayasia May LaFleur, a mother of nine who won a recent Central Housing & Planning Authority (CH&PA) housing lottery, received the keys to her new home during an official handing over ceremony yesterday.
The house, which is valued $4 million, is located at the New Prospect Housing Scheme on the East Bank of Demerara, where Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Valerie Adams-Yearwood, presented LaFleur with the keys.
LaFleur thanked God and the Ministry of Communities along with everybody who assisted her throughout the journey.
“Oh God! God is working a miracle for me,” she recalled saying when she first learnt that she had won the house.
LaFleur plans to later extend the house and plant a kitchen garden.
Before winning the house, LaFleur lived at the Guyhoc Park squatting area and had been squatting for 23 years. She applied for a house lot 12 years ago and hoped that her luck would change under the coalition government.
She, along with hundreds of others, filled a coupon for a chance to win a free house courtesy of the CH&PA, at an open house exhibition held on March 31st.
The house is furnished with a bed, television, microwave and a few other amenities. LaFleur was supposed to pay $100,000 for the plot of land within the next six months but this debt has reportedly been cleared by the Guyana Public Service Union and the D&J Group.