Six low-income families in Sophia are the proud recipients of keys to their new core homes while 22 persons received subsidies during the commissioning of a new Community Centre in ‘C’ Field, Sophia, Georgetown, yesterday.
All this was made possible through a US$28 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) under the Adequate Housing and Urban Accessibility Program.
According to CH&PA Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sherwyn Greaves, the project’s main objective is to improve the standard of living of families in urban and periurban areas in Georgetown. “In addition to the many services that we offer, the CH&PA is implementing the Ade-quate Housing and Urban Accessibility [AH&UA] program. This twenty-eight million US dollar project is financed through a loan from the IDB to the Government of Guyana [and] the project aims to improve the quality of life in urban and periurban Georgetown through better access to adequate housing, basic infrastructure for low income population,” the CEO explained.
Greaves informed that as part of the authority’s effort to ensure affordable housing to the residents of Sophia, fifty families were selected to benefit from core homes. This, he said, accounts for twenty per cent of the overall program target while another 130 families have been selected to receive subsidies of up to $500,000 worth of building materials. He noted that so far, the agency has delivered to one hundred and eleven beneficiaries, and of these, thirty five have completed work. Many of these were among those who received their completion certificates today.
Along with the core houses and subsidies handed over yesterday, those Sophia residents who had already received subsidies and have extended or expanded their homes were also handed certificates of completion along with electrical installation certificates which they can now take to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) to have their electrical power lines installed.
According to the contract signed with the CH&PA, the new home owners are required to move into their homes within a one-month period.
Meanwhile, the new community centre which was commissioned and also houses a playfield can be used as a multi-complex facility where a number of activities can be hosted for the development of both the elders and youths in the Sophia area.
The CEO remarked that Sophia has not only seen the building of houses, but other upgrades for the year 2022. “…Under the project in Sophia, 17.5 kilometres of roads have been upgraded to asphalted concrete, 1.8 kilometres of concrete drains and 2 kilometres of sidewalks constructed, 155 concrete culverts built and 100 solar LED lights installed.” In addition to these developments, a number of macro and micro drains were cleaned in order to improve drainage and irrigation in the community.
The AH&UA project boundaries for the low-income areas are between Grove on the East Bank of Demerara and Victoria on the East Coast of Demerara and Parfaite Harmonie in Region Three, where 250 core homes are expected to be built in those areas while 2,000 home subsidies will be disbursed to low-income families in the same areas.
Also present at the handing over and commissioning were Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal, and Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water, Susan Rodri-gues, along with Chief of Operations and Acting Representative of the IDB to Guyana, Lorena Solor-zano Salazar, who all congratulated the Sophia residents on their acquisitions.
