Improved Housing Will Improve Behaviours – PM

As the dwellings of persons across the island improve, learning is expected to advance and more young people will resist anti-social behaviours. This, according to Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness.

The Prime Minister who was delivering the keynote address at the handing over of a three-bedroom unit under the Government New Social Housing Programme (NSHP) in Orange Bay, Portland, on Friday (March 25), said when children are raised in substandard conditions, it has negative impacts on their schooling.

“If children’s learning improves, it will have an impact on their behaviour, it could mean that less children will make decisions to get involved in deviant behaviour,” such as the joining of criminal gangs, drugs running, and lottery scamming, the PM said.

Describing the social housing initiative that has delivered 35 houses since its inception in 2018 and benefited over 330 individuals, as an “excellent programme,” Mr. Holness said over time, it is expected that it will reduce the level of criminality in the society.

The Prime Minister, said while the houses are free to the beneficiaries, the costs are borne by the taxpayers, “but it is an important transfer, because the government acknowledges that if one person in our society lives in sub-human habitation, it is a blot on the entire society,” he told his audience.

Member of Parliament for Portland West, Hon. Daryl Vaz, said he was happy for his constituent Clovett James, as she had suffered from an accident and is unable to work. Ms James said it was a “wonderful dream come true, and I am proud to be a homeowner,” she said.

Operating under the Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment Programme (HOPE), through the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, the initiative is geared at improving the housing condition of the country’s most needy population.