Pay your rent to the Housing Development Corporation.
This was the call yesterday from Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at the housing distribution ceremony for the Trestrail Lands in D’Abadie, as he said the allocation for housing would be reduced in the upcoming budget.
Rowley said with the Housing Ministry’s allocation to be cut in Monday’s budget, the HDC will have to be more reliant on monies collected from their tenants.
“You will not see a large amount of money allocated in the budget, some money is allocated for the HDC. But the HDC’s management, under the guidance of the Minister, is required to collect such from you fortunate ones what you have committed to pay,” PM said.
Rowley said HDC rent is not exorbitant but he had noted instances of employed persons racking up thousands of dollars of debt.
“HDC rentals are not exorbitant and you must pay it unless you are destitute. I am instructing the HDC to collect from those who have been authorised to occupy rental units. The rents are not exorbitant and some people are just downright irresponsible in not carrying their part of the bargain.
“Imagine someone got a house only a few months ago, less than a year ago and is employed and is already in debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars to the HDC. That cannot be encouraged,” he said.
Rowley said payments from rental and mortgages will be used to finance future housing projects.
“We need the money. You got into the unit by agreeing to pay the mortgage and that mortgage money is going straight into somebody else’s unit. The contractors have to be paid, we have a number of projects in the pipeline, we have a number of contractors on new sites, as they progress the work towards creating additional units they have to be paid,” said Rowley.
“The collections from the HDC would now have to be a major part of the input into the maintenance and the construction of new units.”
On September 14, the HDC also unveiled a new vehicle which was earmarked specifically for debt collection.
Some 80 people received keys at the ceremony. Construction of Trestrail Lands began in 2014 but was put on hold until it was resumed with a new contractor in 2016.