At the groundbreaking of the Spanish Town self-help housing project, Prime Minister Michael Manley advised future homeowners to maintain dignity and self-respect by avoiding makeshift structures and shanty town conditions. He emphasised that the new housing development, part of the Sites and Services Project, is a chance for Jamaicans to build a better future with civic pride.

Published Thursday, October 17, 1974

Self-help housing project launched

OFFICIALLY LAUNCHING  a project he described as “self-reliance and love in action”, Prime Minister the Hon. Michael Manley broke ground yesterday afternoon for the first self-help housing project on Prison Farm Lands in Spanish Town.

Thousands of Jamaican families were bringing up their children in inadequate and disgraceful housing conditions, said the Prime Minister.

Millions of dollars were being spent on schools and colleges, but he believed that there was little use teaching a child under a costly educational programme when all the child had learnt would be “stifled out of his head” when he got home to a family who lived in one room.

The scheme was the beginning of a better future for everyone, he said.

Answering recent criticism of his socialist policies, he said: “This party is socialist, has always been socialist, and I have always been a socialist. Speaking for myself and the Government I have the honour to lead, I can say that we believe that socialism is Christianity in action, and I believe the housing programme we are launching today is a perfect example of what we mean by this.”

Despite the mass of propaganda that was now being launched upon the country, including full-page advertisements in daily newspapers “which must have cost thousands of dollars,” the Prime Minister went on, “they cannot make us turn back from the concept of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.”

The Sites and Services Project, which was to provide 6,000 housing units over the next two years, would cost $31 million, the Prime Minister went on. If this number of houses had been built by traditional methods, they would have cost at least $100 million.

Amenities

In addition, the project was planned to provide community amenities on each housing site, he said. A day care centre would be provided on each estate, with the purpose of making sure that working mothers got the best care for their small children while they were at work.

Working mothers would no longer have to engage teenagers to look after their babies and worry all the time they were at work as to whether their babies were being properly looked after, he said.

Then there would be a basic school in each community so that when the baby reached two or three years, he could begin his education and start primary school with a great advantage.

“What we are showing you now is a glimpse into the future,” he said. “When we talk about building the Jamaica of our dreams, this is the sort of thing we are thinking about.”

Community social centres and opportunities for employment would also be provided on the estates, he added.

He told the hundreds of Spanish Town people who attended the ceremony: “When you get this place, I do not ever want to hear that people have been putting up all sorts of ‘lean-tos’ or old shacks so that before you turn around, the thing is like before, except you have a stronger wall. Do not take this new opportunity and reduce it to a shanty town. Civic pride depends upon self-respect, and if you respect yourself, you will want a place where flowers grow.

Dignity

“I want you to make this into something which expresses your dream of the dignity of being a human being. Say to yourselves, 'I am one of God’s children. I walk in God’s love and I wish to embody in my behaviour all that is finest in the Christian message and Christian witness',” said the Prime Minister.

He also exhorted all those who were going to work on the project to work hard and honestly. “No poor country can afford to be lazy,” he said: “When you cut short your work, you are committing treason against your country.

“Every day, every week this project falls behind because of bad work and laziness, a child continues suffering bad housing conditions. Remember that if you slack on this job, you are hurting your own people and your nation.”

Councillor Howard Aris was chairman at the ceremony the Mayor of Spanish Town, Councillor Ruddy Lawson welcomed the Prime Minister and visitors, and the Hon. Anthony Spaulding, Minister of Housing, introduced the Prime Minister, saying that the project had “been conceptualised but of Mr. Manley’s entire philosophy.”

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Ripton Macpherson, thanked the Prime Minister.

A symbolic breaking of ground was carried out by the Prime Minister; Mr. Fitz Ford, Project Director; Mr. Ripton Macpherson; and the Mayor of Spanish Town.

The project is one of several in the Kingston area being undertaken over the next two years, with $13.5 million from a World Bank loan and $17.5 million from the Jamaica Government.

Housing units will be leased for 40 years and can be renewed. Down payment on each unit will be $150, and the house will be paid for in instalments of between $20 and $30 a month over a 25-year period. Loans will be made by the Credit Union to enable site owners to complete their houses.

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