Prime Minister, Dr Andrew Holness says that during the next iteration of the New Social Housing Programme (NSHP) the Government will be focused on providing more cost-effective units that are easier to build.

He said that the units will be “robust enough to withstand our weather and environmental conditions”.

Dr Holness, who was addressing the ceremony for the handing over of a two-bedroom unit to Shirley and Calvin Swaby in Fullerton Park, St Ann on Thursday, outlined plans to shorten the construction time of the units by using pre-built solutions that can be placed on a foundation.

“They’ll still be strong, robust, but the prefabricated housing solutions, the technology is now far advanced for us to be able to deploy a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom solution quite easily,” he noted.

“So, they are constructed in a factory, they are put on a trailer, and they are brought to the location. A small crane puts them in place, assembles them, and within a matter of a week or two, you have a house ready to occupy. That is the direction in which we will probably have to go because the time it takes for construction, in addition to the administrative time, procurement time, and the compliance time, does elongate the process,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, Zavia Mayne, who is also Member of Parliament for St Ann South West, informed that Swaby and her husband Calvin had lived in an abandoned teacher’s cottage in Alexandria in the parish before being served notice.

Swaby, whose husband is visually impaired, expressed gratitude to the prime minister and Mayne for their part in providing them with safe shelter, noting that their lives have been transformed.