Plans launched to move 20 families from Broad St to Prospect

Twenty families who were squatting on a Broad and Lombard streets property, will soon have their homes constructed at Prospect housing scheme on the East Bank Demerara, thanks to funding from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) and Food for the Poor (FFTP).

The Department of Public Information (DPI) said that the $31 million project is pegged for a November completion and is the first phase of the relocation exercise. Those 20 families were given priority based on households with young children, especially those who are attending school. 

Phase Two will see the remaining 50 families having their homes constructed at Cummings Lodge.

According to Chief Executive Officer of FFTP, Kent Vincent, his organisation’s partnership with the CH&PA is the first first of its kind and he looks forward to similar ventures in the future. He noted that FFTP has itself built more than 3,900 homes countrywide for families.

“Food for the Poor will be financing 41% of the total cost of the homes and each parcel of land FFTP will be financing the cost for the land at $58,000 for each parcel as well as we will be paying the conveyance fee and the transports at $8,000 each so we are making sure we make it very easy for these residents,” Vincent explained.

FFTP will be putting $12 million toward the project, while CH&PA will provide $19 million.

The DPI release stated that Minister within the Ministry of Communities with responsibility for housing, Annette Ferguson, noted that the development moves government toward its goal of ensuring every Guyanese is provided with affordable and suitable housing. Through the project, she said, two of President David Granger’s four pillars for housing have been realized—reorientation and regularisation.

“In reorientation, priority is given to meeting the needs of the most vulnerable, low income earning public servants desirous of becoming first-time homeowners. Through regularisation, the president is determined to put an end to shanties, slums and squatter settlements,” she stated.

Meanwhile, CH&PA’s Chief Executive Officer, Lelon Saul, reiterated the agency’s mandate to provide affordable housing solutions to the working class.

“Housing is a fundamental right; housing is a basic need because one of the first things that anyone would wish to have is a shelter over his head and it is for this reason, we at CH&PA are compelled to provide housing for the people of Guyana,” he said.

The release noted that in July, 2017, a court order was issued in favour of the De Freitas and Gonsalves company, ordering more than 140 persons to vacate the Lot 17-18 Broad and Lombard Streets property.

Just about two years later, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between CH&PA and the FFTP to relocate the residents.

The squatting area came to public attention after former Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence in September, 2016, led a team from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to the area as part of their first country visit to Guyana.

A statement from the IACHR on the September 21 to 23 visit said in part, “During its visit to the neighbourhood of Lombard Street, the IACHR delegation was shocked by the extreme poverty and precarious living conditions of its inhabitants. The community comprises approximately 40 adults and 80 children with clear housing, sanitation, and health problems, as well as limited work opportunities and scant social services provided by the State. During the visit to the community, the IACHR was accompanied by Minister Volda Lawrence, who pledged to continue to work to improve the situation and opportunities of the community’s residents. The IACHR calls upon the State to adopt urgent steps to improve the socioeconomic (situation) of the Lombard Street residents and to create, immediately and without delay, conditions that allow them to exercise all their human rights.”