Housing is part of every Guyanese citizen’s birthright

Oct 04, 2020 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

Kaieteur News – (A Review of David Granger’s A roof over every head: every citizen’s right to proper housing.)
David Granger’s A roof over every head: every citizen’s right to proper housing provides a visionary and practical solution to Guyana’s housing woes. The book reflects the value of strategic planning in the development of social policies.
Housing is part of every Guyanese citizen’s birthright. The American dream was once described as “…a house in the suburbs, a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”. Most Guyanese dream of owning their own home – whether in the towns, suburbs or villages.
Homeownership, as a form of personal economic independence, can be traced to the historic 19th century Village Movement. Freed Africans pooled their savings and began to purchase abandoned plantations along the coast soon after Emancipation in 1838. In so doing, they established their own homes, farms and villages thus allowing them greater economic independence. That dream of owning one’s own home, however, has been elusive for many.
The People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration once boasted of distributing 70,000 house lots between 1992 and 2015. The evidence in support of this is anecdotal. What is known is that the PPP/C government distributed tens of thousands of house lots and established new housing schemes.
A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration after Granger became President in 2015, however, discovered that many of these house lots remained unoccupied and most of the schemes were underdeveloped. The infrastructure in these schemes was in a deplorable state. Land speculation was rife. The system of allocating lots was far from transparent.
The PPP/C’s ‘one-stop’ initiative was undertaken without adequate controls and checks and balances to ensure that only deserving persons benefitted. The initiative witnessed persons, including prosperous property owners, turning up with bags of cash in order to pay for house lots. The system was abused by rich people with resources.
The ‘one-stop’ initiative did not allow for adequate verification to prevent existing homeowners from acquiring new lots or doing so in the name of others. The ensuing chaos was reminiscent of the lawless, wild west. The best house lots were snapped up by the rich. Private developers cornered sections of the market and there were complaints about the quality of their work. Access to affordable housing became restricted and the cost of rents became unaffordable for the average citizen under the PPPC’s housing programme. It is against this background that Granger crafted his government’s housing policy.
This book – A roof over every head: every citizen’s right to proper housing – consists of the text of an address which Granger delivered to the Central Housing and Planning Authority during his visit to housing schemes on the East Bank Demerara in May 2019. Granger, at that time President, articulated a visionary housing policy predicated on the simple, yet profound, objective of ensuring that there should be a roof over every head. The starting point of the policy is the provision enshrined in the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (at Article 26) that: “Every citizen has the right to proper housing accommodation.”
The policy was inspired, also, by his Cabinet’s establishment of the State Lands Settlement Commission (SLSC) to determine the rational allocation of lands formerly occupied by sugarcane cultivation and his stated policy of eliminating shanties, slums and squatter settlements everywhere in the country. The title of the Ministry of Local Government was changed to ‘Ministry of Communities’ in 2015 to emphasise the need for human communities rather than ‘housing schemes.’
Granger’s housing policy, not unmindful of the country’s previous housing programmes, sought to give preference to low-income persons, particularly low-income public servants including the country’s nurses and teachers. Granger’s plan catered for the holistic development of infrastructure, public utilities including electricity and water, and social amenities, instead of merely clearing lands and calling them ‘housing schemes.’
Granger’s housing policy also had a regional component linked to his strategy for the establishment of the four new hinterland ‘capital’ towns – at Bartica, Lethem, Mabaruma and Mahdia. In addition, it aimed at accelerating the regularization of scores of shanties, slums and squatter settlements which still scar our towns and rural areas. Bringing an end to these irregular housing settlements was to become a central focus of his Coalition’s administration’s 2020 re-election campaign platform. This was all part of his vision to ensure not only ‘a roof over every head’ but dignified housing and living conditions.
This book is not without its weaknesses. Granger’s housing policy aimed at ensuring that every citizen had a roof over his or her head. But this approach appears to have been driven by a policy or promoting homeownership. The housing market, however, is not limited to homeownership but also involves rentals. Granger’s housing policy could have benefitted from measures aimed at driving down the cost of rents, the prohibitive rate of which has subjected some tenants to do what has been described as the “tyranny of landlordism.” In many instances, tenants are subject to unacceptable living conditions. The sprawl of commercial business into areas once zoned for residential occupation has also driven up housing rents.
Granger’s housing strategy is silent also on measures to reduce the cost of housing. The Inter-American Development Bank-sponsored 2016 study – entitled The State of Housing in Six Caribbean Countries – had found that the cost of housing units remained high and out of the reach of the average income earner.
The National Development Strategy (NDS), which was developed under the PPP/C administration almost 25 years ago, had highlighted this concern. The ‘Strategy’ had identified land acquisition costs as a major contributory factor to the high cost of housing, a development which is attributed the stranglehold of government on much of the available land in the country.
Other factors identified were the slothful pace of housing construction, inadequate funding for the housing sector, delays in administrative processing of land titles, political interference in land distribution and limited institutional capacity of the Central Housing and Planning Authority.
The ‘Strategy’ noted that as many as 60 per cent of the country’s people lived in their own homes and 25 per cent of all households were renting accommodation. A housing crisis should not exist if the PPP/C’s claims of having developed 70,000 house lots were to be credible and if homes have been erected on most of these lots.
The country’s housing stock is considerable. There were almost 220,000 housing units eight years ago. Since then, more houses have been built. The housing stock, therefore, should have been adequate to ensure housing for all. Speculation had constrained occupancy, however. Property owners, including non-residents, have been driving up housing costs by not putting their local properties on the housing market. The country’s coastal communities, instead, are littered with hundreds of unoccupied properties.
Granger’s housing policy remains unrivalled, despite his not addressing issues such as releasing more state lands for housing, reducing the cost of home construction, regulating house rentals and enforcing rules for zoning. It presents a forward-looking and realistic approach to solving the country’s long-standing housing woes.
Granger’s A roof over every head: every citizen’s right to proper housing is extremely helpful in understanding the problems which beset the country’s housing market. It sheds light, also, on previous housing drives as well as the shortcomings of the PPP/C’s much-vaunted housing programme. The book re-emphasises the need for a clearly articulated national housing policy. The housing problem in Guyana requires the sort of foresight which is shown by Granger.
A comprehensive approach to the housing problem, modelled along the lines of Granger’s housing policy will avoid the pitfalls which have bedeviled the country’s housing drive. The local housing crisis is complex and multi-faceted. From a policy perspective, this book should be required reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of how to solve this problem.