Covid Housing Crisis!

After four months of not saying anything about the Housing Crisis in Jamaica! I have to vent my frustrations again!

I sent an email to the newly entitled Ministry of Housing Urban Renewal and Climate Change?

One thing about life here in Jamaica the Government is really great at dressing up, putting on a performance, curating great launch events, and putting together Great Titles and Acronyms but when it comes to actually doing the work that the product, or service or service person - more to the point, states on the label. 

Most times there is no response, when asking intelligent, reasonable questions, or even just trying to find a service that has been advertised or publicized by Government Officials. It seems that the Government only responds to people who they see as potential investors or important enough here in Jamaica to warrant a response. 

The issue is what persons define as important issues here seems to vary quite a lot across the board, and in some cases seems to be very far from the most prominent or important issues of concern.

SO basically the persons charged with the duty of Governance do everything to sound and look like they are important, often times using jargon or academic terms that are totally incomprehensible to most of the population. In order to maintain their elitist position and demeanor, but often times there is no actual real accomplishments being made in the areas most necessary. 

WE need the Government here in Jamaica to take our Living conditions, Housing issues, specifically for persons who are not homeowners, but are tenants or lodgers seriously! The issue of Tenancy Agreements needs to be reviewed, with experienced, intelligent persons. Especially now during the Covid Crisis where we are all being ordered to stay inside, There needs to be extra care taken to look into the problems within the housing arena. 

Example: If a person Rents a property and they find upon the first one or two weeks that things are not as they expected. Or they have been mislead, or the place is not in a good state of repair or there are other issues with unsociable neighbors or mis-management of the property. In any other area of business, any other purchase there is what is commonly known as a "Cooling off" period. Where the customer or client is entitled to request for the agreement to be cancelled and to claim their monies to be repaid via a refund.  Some agreements stipulate some fees to be deducted before a refund can be processed, however some facility must be in place within this agreement to allow for such eventualities. Within the Landlord and Tenant Agreement, there is no such thing as a cancellation period.  And anyone who has rented a property will be familiar with how difficult it can be to ever get a Landlord to return any money, (including Security Deposits)* once they have been paid! 

In this respect it would seem that the Governments in this world, not only here in Jamaica. Are supporting the legal robbery of persons who are tenants and who may be unable to own a home or for some other reason are away from their own home. Perhaps they need to rent a place close to their place of employment or some other reason, the reason is not the point that is their personal choice. A person who pays rent to a Landlord is a Customer or Client and just as is the case in any other area of business the customer has a right to expect to receive the service or goods that they are paying for according to the agreement that was made at the outset. At present there is hardly any interaction between the state (Government) and Landlords, it is treated as a Private matter and is between the Tenant and the Landlord to resolve any problems within the Judicial system. There doesn't seem to be any concern about any proper Governance of these matters by the Government even those who work within the area of Housing. The problem is that the Governments need to put into place laws that make sense to the people that they are Governing. 

*Specifically relating to the issue of Security Deposits - there is nothing that states within the Landlord and Tenant Act itself that the Security Deposit is a Prerequisite for renting or leasing a property. Still it has become the expected norm that a Tenant should be able to provide more than one months rent in order to secure accommodation, even if the Property is unfurnished. However to my knowledge a Security Deposit is only to be used to protect the Landlord to some extent by covering the cost of any damages that mat occur to the property, and will only be returned upon satisfactory inspection of the property at the time of the Tenants vacating the Property. Of course in the real world this is not the case and its sad but again the current practices allow Landlords to find every excuse to extort as much money as possible from potentially positive clients.