HELPING THE PEOPLE

Jul 22, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A few days ago, the news featured the story of a man who moved from a four thousand square feet home to a miserly eighty nine square feet building.

The change was dramatic and so too was the design of the interior of the house which made optimum use of every square inch of space right up to the roof.

Now that is quite a small home. There are persons in Guyana whose washroom is larger than eighty- nine square feet and it may thus be hard for anyone to contemplate being able to live in such a doll house. But the man believes that his small home has its advantages. It has allowed him to have a different perspective on life, and obviously great savings on home expenses. Not only has he reduced utility bills, but also he has simplified his life.

Unless you were born with a gold spoon in your mouth, you or your ancestors would have most likely started life in a small and modest home. Over time things would have got better and this progression is often reflected in the expansion of your living space.

The government of Guyana is pushing a low carbon development strategy, which concentrates heavily on obtaining financial resources to help fight the problems associated with climate change. Unfortunately, the strategy is completely devoid of the “softer” issues, which can also affect our carbon exploitation and consumption.

The government is building a home for the elderly, which will probably end up costing more than four million US dollars. This home will probably not house more than two hundred persons who will have to be provided on a daily basis with food, nursing care and all the other amenities that go into a home of the elderly. Shockingly, inmates will not have their own individual rooms but will most likely be housed in dorms that would have little privacy.

It would seem a much better idea if instead of spending this huge sum of money to institutionalize the elderly and homeless, that it would be much better to build a small low cost house, such as the one that the man built but adapted towards the climate and conditions of Guyana.

These homes can be designed locally, just like the eighty-nine square feet house built by that man who was featured on the news.

In a few days time there is going to be builders’ exhibition at the National Stadium. But will there be any low-cost model houses on display or will this exhibition cater only for those who wish to advertise the construction, home renovation and banking services for persons who can afford to build reasonable sized homes? In short is this an exhibition for the rich and not for the poor?

It would be good if there can be some low cost and low carbon solutions to some of the problems that the poor face in finding suitable housing, including solutions to the problems of those who need somewhere to live.

There are persons today who are taking their elderly and sick relatives to the hospitals and abandoning them there. A case was recently highlighted in the newspaper whereby a man who was discharged from the hospital had nowhere to go.

Instead of building a massive hostel for these persons, the government should give serious consideration to build small model houses in which these persons can live by themselves. Instead of selling off large tracts of state lands for private housing development for the rich, a mini village should be created with these miniature homes and with support services for the homeless. This would be a low cost and a low carbon solution to the problems being faced by the elderly in Guyana today, many of whom are being forced to spend their golden years in a ward without any privacy.

If the government of Kuwait is going to fund a low cost housing project, let the first priority be the design of a hundred square feet home suitable for the destitute. If your patriotic contractors and engineers put their minds to the task, they should be able to come with a one hundred square feet home that can cost under half of a million dollars, inclusive of installing water and electricity.

Innovative solutions can be found such as adapting old train cabins, which are usually dumped in the United States, into range flats for the elderly. So much can be done if we just put our minds towards the goal of helping people rather than helping friends.

It would bring a great deal of joy to the destitute and those inmates in homes for the elderly if instead of a blind separating them from the next bed, there can be individual flats for everyone which would allow them the privacy that is so important to the aged.

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