Housing on wheels

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

The National Housing Trust (NHT) has officially gone mobile. The government organisation mandated with providing housing financing and solutions unveiled its first mobile unit in Mile Gully, Manchester, last Wednesday, under the patronage of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Dubbed NHT on Wheels or NHT Mobile, it was introduced with the slogan 'Service at Your Doorstep'. It is a 2014 Toyota Hiace 15-seater bus, customised to become a mobile office. NHT on Wheels was announced by Simpson Miller in her Budget presentation for the 2013-2014 fiscal year. It was proposed as a means of improving service to rural communities, while increasing the
NHT's visibility.

"NHT on Wheels will focus on rural
and deep rural areas. A survey was conducted in the parishes with the
lowest NHT compliance rates and these parishes will be given priority,"
the NHT said through its Corporate Communications Department. Still,
"The mobile unit will be deployed to other parishes as the NHT's
management sees fit, to the fulfilment of our strategic goals."
Initially, NHT on Wheels will travel to Cross Keys in Manchester,
Accompong in St Elizabeth and Wait-A-Bit, Trelawny.

In those
communities, the NHT said, it will be "offering self-employed
registration, loan processing contributions refund applications,
acceptance of non-cash contributions and mortgage payments and general
information dissemination".

While customers can make
electronic payments with a debit or credit card, cash payments will not
be accommodated.

The Hiace has been retrofitted to
boast most of the amenities at a fixed NHT office. "It is equipped with
two general customer service waiting areas. These will be located on
both sides of the unit and will be equipped with retractable awnings,
outfitted with chairs to seat 20 customers," the NHT said. "The unit can
accommodate one customer service representative and two guests at each
station at any given time. There are additional tables on the unit that
can facilitate the set-up of additional processing stations external to
the unit, if so desired. As indicated earlier, the external waiting
areas can accommodate a maximum of 20 people."

This is
as, along with the cabin for the driver and passenger, its office cabin
has been customised with "two workstations which can accommodate two
customer service representatives and four customers
simultaneously".

Accessing and relaying information is
key, so the NHT's mobile unit has 4G connectivity to the organsation's
main systems, allowing for a service level on par with a traditional
branch office. Maximising use of the space, NHT on Wheels packs in a
multipurpose copier, scanner, printers, computers, point-of-sale
machines, file cabinets and telephone access. Powering the entire set-up
is a 24 volts/3,000 watts inverter, as well as four 12-volt batteries
with an equal number of outlets.

The NHT said the
reaction has been favourable. "Already the feedback has been good, with
persons asking when the unit will be coming to their area. Based on our
survey, 93 per cent of the residents in rural areas of the four parishes
surveyed support the idea of NHT Mobile. The majority of residents in
rural areas of the four parishes surveyed want to learn more about how
to contribute to and get loans from the NHT, as well as what plans the
organisation has for the development of their locale," the
organisation's Corporate Communications Department
said.