EDITORIAL - Senator Meadows' squatting intervention

Beyond highlighting the extent of his frustration with Jamaica's pervasive and expanding squatter settlements and their attendant problems, Senator Dennis Meadows' intervention on the subject in the Senate last Friday will address, at best, only a minuscule aspect of the problem.

What Jamaica needs is a comprehensive land-settlement policy. While the need for tougher laws, which Senator Meadows articulated, and their enforcement cannot be ignored, the Government and its relevant agencies must demonstrate that they recognise the urgency with which this crisis must be tackled.

With a Ministry of Water and Housing study identifying more than 700 settlements across Jamaica, the State would be more than hard-pressed to find the resources and the personnel to police the areas and reduce the incidence of criminality.

Yet, the holistic policy that is necessary must delineate different types of squatters and squatter settlements. There are the outright criminal land capturers who have determined they are entitled to move on to other people's property simply because it is there and they "want land". There are others who have been living on land which family or relatives have occupied for decades, but for which they have no title. There are also crown lands on to which people have moved and have started to build anything from shacks to elaborate concrete dwellings.

housing settlements

Any holistic squatter policy must address the rural-urban drift that makes some locations more appealing as housing settlements as people seek to reside closer to where they perceive the jobs are. It must address housing shortage, the availability of idle lands, and the manipulation in which politicians engage to ensure they have solid blocks of votes at election time.

Variations of the Operation PRIDE project, shorn of the political manipulation and properly managed, should be reconsidered. That project allowed people to buy government land and cooperatively invest sweat equity, with the support of the Government, for its infrastructure development. The Government, however, must not just hand over land to people, who must pay a fair price, but they must be assured of proper titles.

It should be borne in mind, too, that there cannot be a one-model-fits-all settlements approach. Different communities have their peculiar social and cultural dynamics and these should be built into the policy mix.

Senator Meadows' concerns are understandable. However, greater criminalisation cannot be the primary plank on which to build a more meaningful solution to this conundrum.

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