Opposition Spokesman on Housing and Sustainable Living, Senator Floyd Morris, has unveiled plans aimed at improving access to housing for Jamaicans and enhancing the quality of life for persons with disabilities.

Morris stated that in 1989, he became blind due to glaucoma, which many would regard as a fatal blow, but he didn’t allow that to stop him from pursuing his dreams. “I decided that I was going to use education as the means of personal transformation. I went to Mico Evening College, I went to the University of the West Indies, and I completed a first degree, I completed a second degree, and I completed a PhD, and now I stand here as a professor at the University of the West Indies,” he said.

The opposition spokesman expressed, while speaking at the People’s National Party (PNP) St James Parish Meeting on Sunday, July 27, the challenges that persons with disabilities face in Jamaica. “I want to say to you that life in Jamaica is very hard for people with disabilities. I have been through the struggles, I have been through the challenges, and that is why I sat down with my leader [Mark Golding], and we said, what is it that we can do to make life better for people with disabilities in Jamaica?

“And that is why, under the visionary leadership of our leader and the next prime minister of Jamaica, we are going to set up a disability fund. And the leader tells you that he is going to start it with a billion dollars so that people with disabilities across Jamaica can gain greater access to education, greater access to technology, and greater access to self-employment because the People’s National Party says empowerment all the time,” Morris continued.

He stated that under Mark Golding’s leadership, the PNP plans to empower people with disabilities right across the length and breadth of Jamaica. “Comrades, we are about transformation. That is what the People’s National Party is about. And that is why your caring leader has said to me, Floyd, your talent and your ability are much more than the disability that you have.

“And he has assigned me the portfolio of housing and sustainable living. And he said to me, your mission is to bring about policies for affordable housing for the people of Jamaica. And I hear some people after 10 years in government, they get busy and dizzy and talk about affordable housing after 10 years,” Morris added, criticising the government for their lies and dishonesty in the number of housing units they have built since their tenure.

Plans for housing and development

He highlighted that the number of housing units built by the government, according to the National Housing Trust (NHT) records, is not reflective of what the government purports. “They come and they tell us lies, saying that they built 70,000 houses when the data from the NHT assures that the NHT only built 21,000 houses over the past 10 years. So they are lying through their teeth because they want to convince the people of Jamaica. But we know that the people of Jamaica are not fools.”

Morris announced a series of programs and policies for housing that the PNP aims to implement. “The first thing that we are going to do is stop the annual extraction of $11.4 billion from the NHT to fund the budget. And we are going to take that money and build more houses for the people of Jamaica.

“And we are going to use some of that money to set up the Young People’s Special Fund to make sure that they have money so that they can pay the deposit for their house. And we are going to give them $500,000. We are giving them that money to pay on the deposit for their houses, and 10,000 young people will benefit from that scheme over a five-year period,” he added.

Morris further stated that the time has come for the people in Jamaica to live in decent and affordable houses.

“The majority of people in Jamaica can’t buy the $20 million, $30 million, and $40 million houses that Andrew Holness and his government built. And so we are going to be building 50,000 houses over a five-year period. And when we build those houses, we are not going to make the people who purchase those houses pay for the land portion of the houses. So what is going to happen is that every homeowner is going to get at least a $3 million discount on the houses and get immediate equity in the houses that they own under the Mark Golding government,” he said.