PM says 500 new social houses coming next fiscal year

Prime Minister Andrew Holness says more Jamaicans living in substandard conditions will benefit under the new social housing programme this year.

Speaking at the handing over of a one bedroom house on Monday morning in Lima, Adelphi, St James, Holness said 500 new social houses will be built during the 2024/2025 financial year.

“We plan to increase the budget for the new social housing programme and the indigent housing programme this year, so that we can get more Jamaicans (having their own home),” Holness said.

"We are targeting, to do more, at minimum 500 new social housing units this year, meaning 2024/2025 financial year,” the Prime Minister revealed.

He said his administration's social housing programme is working and can withstand all levels of scrutiny.

For her part, 67-year-old Norma Cooper says she is grateful to have received her own home while giving thanks to the prime minister and Edmund Bartlett, the St James East Central member of parliament.

She likened her new house to a hotel.

“I am very grateful for this one bedroom unit… When I come inside here [the house] it's like I don't want to come out and yet it did not finished yet," Copper said of the pre-construction phases of her new house.

“When I went inside the bathroom and turned on the pipe, I said to myself, man, this place looks like it's a hotel because I am feeling so good,” she said.

- Albert Ferguson 

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