Sandra Ellers | Time for rentals and rental vouchers, NHT

Last week, I met a 37-year-old single mother who shares a two-bedroom home with her aged parents and two children in Portmore.

They are desperately in need of somewhere on the ground floor as the stairs to the second-floor flat in which they live are affecting her mother and father, who are both more than 70 years old and find the climbing difficult. The father, who is in his 80s, has prostate cancer.

However, the hunt for somewhere to live is a living nightmare. Fifteen thousand dollars monthly is what the single mom can afford. She braids hair and does day’s work for a living.

My husband met another single mother, a cashier at a lottery agency, who says she is seeking a one-bedroom for herself and her two children.

She said she was willing to share, because one bedroom was all she could afford. She complained that the potential landlords would take her name and never call her back.

My own experience is that when homeowners advertise their place for rent, hundreds turn up, and the competition to get units is fierce, especially in Portmore.

Portmore is where most people who work in the Corporate Area will turn for housing, because it is more affordable. Landowners can literally raffle their property. There are hundreds more willing to rent than there are houses available.

Part of the problem is that workers are unable to rent what is more easily available based on what they earn. It is time for the National Housing Trust (NHT) to introduce rentals, or rental vouchers, as a part of the solution to the housing situation. It is most horrific, as a review of the experience of landlords who place ads will quickly reveal. They may ask for job letters, payslips, referrals and more, but even then they are hard-pressed to select from the dozens who apply.

In a proposal put forward in its 2016 publication, An Assessment of the National Housing Trust, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) asserts that adequate housing needs could be addressed if the NHT were to enter the rental market.

SUBSIDISING RENTALS

CAPRI said, realistically, owning a house is not the best option for some contributors. It suggests that subsidising rentals would allow the poor to enjoy decent housing.

“The greatest need for these households is housing, not homeownership. Therefore, the key to providing housing for low-income earners is recognising that the concept of ‘housing’ is more than just providing a house,” the research body said.

CAPRI proposes that rental housing could be facilitated by the issuing of rental vouchers to subsidise housing for those who are unable to purchase.

It states that with the ratio of “houses built to population size” used to assess the population coverage of NHT houses, the analysis shows that the NHT has not increased its housing coverage of the Jamaican population significantly, as house completions fluctuated around 0.1 per cent of the population between 1998 and 2014.

The analysis also shows a decreasing trend over the period. Mortgages disbursed annually by the NHT fluctuated between two per cent and three per cent from 2000 to 2014, showing no increase in the share of the population that accesses mortgages.

In advocating a housing solution categorised as rental, CaPRI said: “What is important about housing is not so much what it is, as what it does for people’s lives.

“… Rental housing is a good solution for low-income earners, as it averts the need for landownership, and allows households to make other investments such as in education, healthcare, etc.”

The research paper outlines: “The benefits of renting include the efficient use of urban space, the ability to house the labour force closer to areas of employment, and averting the upfront costs and financial exposure associated with acquiring one’s own home and a mortgage – something which is often impossible for lower-income groups.”

Hopefully, the Trust will speedily look at rental vouchers as something to be added to their mix of solutions.

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