Squatting has been with us in Jamaica since the end of enslavement. We have failed to address many things like that since the end of slavery. We now blame everyone, including the legal owner of the land at Coopers Pen in Trelawny, for the problem. Earlier today, someone reminded me of a businessman named Witter, whose business place was burned down because he objected to people squatting on his land. A few years ago we heard that the UWI hospital was about to lose its status as a teaching hospital due to squatting. The capturers' community on Mona Commons continues to grow, and this could result in the UWI hospital not being recognized as a teaching hospital any more.
Bark Di Trute writer Michael Spence has written many articles about the problem of squatting, and these articles have been shared with our leaders and the population. Civil society has fallen asleep, and not a word has been heard from the church leaders. The church leaders are possibly saying silent prayers. Where are the members of the intellectual communities? They are probably busy searching the textbooks for solutions.
I see this problem falling into two categories. Those who squat on the land and those who capture the land. The squatters are those who are poor and probably just put up a few sheets of zinc to protect themselves from the elements. Those who take a plot of land without permission and build a permanent one- or two-, or more-story-high house and business place, I call the latter "land capturers."
Some leaders behave like those birds that fly high up, looking for a location to get some votes. I saw them at Cooper's Pen, making sure that they were on camera. There is one whom I taught as a youngster, and I am surprised that he has reappeared from nowhere like a termite to get in the middle of things. I thought this man was dead politically. Some leaders claim no knowledge of the unplanned development. It seems as if they forgot the places where they went to look for votes.
If these unplanned areas can develop for years and no one sees them, then terrorists could be building a headquarters to attack our country and other countries, and we are not aware of the development. Parish councils don't see these buildings going up without any approval? Oonu classic.
Let me once again post some solutions:
- The Ministry of Labour and Social Security should register all those who squat on lands and the location of such lands. Note that I did not mention the land grabbers.
- Social workers should be assigned to these communities and encourage these people not to have any more children until they have secured a place for themselves.
- The government should build housing solutions where these people can be housed temporarily. As soon as they get jobs, then you organize them to get NHT benefits.
- After we have settled those informal settlers, then the concept of adverse possession should be removed from the law books.
- Organize squatters into work brigades and have them trained in housing construction at HEART/NTA. These brigades could work with other professionals to build low-income-approved buildings in approved areas for their members.
- Those people who do not get on the programme or who drop out of the programme without an approved reason would end up losing the benefits of the programme.
- Anywhere there are major developments such as hotels, require that these hotels build low-income houses for their workers who are paid low wages.
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