The Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment has strong­ly con­demned re­cent com­men­taries on its poli­cies for hous­ing and squat­ting made by a na­tion­al news­pa­per and an Op­po­si­tion MP, de­scrib­ing them as “ir­re­spon­si­ble mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions” of the re­al­i­ties in the lo­cal hous­ing sec­tor, and of Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempts to find so­lu­tions to those is­sues.

“The Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­jects the mis­lead­ing claims pre­sent­ed in the Sun­day Ex­press ed­i­to­r­i­al, ‘Hous­ing Headache Needs Ur­gent Med­ica­tion’, and the re­cent ar­ti­cle by MP Rush­ton Paray, ‘Lack of Struc­tured Poli­cies to Ad­dress Squat­ting Cri­sis’,” the min­istry said in a strong­ly word­ed state­ment.

“The ed­i­to­r­i­al ir­re­spon­si­bly claims that the Gov­ern­ment is "fail­ing" to pro­vide ad­e­quate hous­ing so­lu­tions. Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth,” it as­sert­ed.

The Min­istry re­buts the com­men­taries by point­ing to sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en in­clud­ing Home Im­prove­ment Grants, Home Im­prove­ment Sub­si­dies, Home Con­struc­tion Sub­si­dies, and starter homes, in ad­di­tion to Pub­lic-Pri­vate Part­ner­ship projects to pro­vide af­ford­able hous­ing.

“These are tan­gi­ble, im­pact­ful ini­tia­tives that com­plete­ly con­tra­dict the Sun­day Ex­press's claim that low-in­come hous­ing is be­ing ne­glect­ed,” the min­istry said.

It al­so rub­bished claims that the hous­ing sec­tor is plagued by “in­ef­fi­cien­cy and bobol”, de­scrib­ing such ac­cu­sa­tions as “base­less”, not­ing that the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) “ad­heres to an ob­jec­tive and ver­i­fi­able sys­tem.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry:

● 60% of al­lo­ca­tions are as­signed through a live draw process, en­sur­ing fair and trans­par­ent se­lec­tion.

● 25% al­lo­cat­ed to emer­gency cas­es or in­di­vid­u­als rec­om­mend­ed by the Min­is­ter, in­clud­ing vic­tims of dis­as­ters and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

● 10% re­served for mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and de­fence forces.

● 5% des­ig­nat­ed for the el­der­ly and in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties.

The al­so points to re­forms made to en­sure low­er- and mid­dle-in­come fam­i­lies could af­ford a home, as out­lined in the 2017 Bud­get.

“These re­forms have ex­pand­ed ac­cess to hous­ing for more than 6,000 fam­i­lies,” the min­istry stat­ed, “en­sur­ing that state hous­ing sub­si­dies ben­e­fit those who need them most, rather than those who can al­ready af­ford pri­vate hous­ing.”

Con­cern­ing squat­ting, the min­istry says MP Paray’s claim that the Gov­ern­ment has not im­ple­ment­ed poli­cies to ad­dress squat­ting is “mis­lead­ing” and as­serts that squat­ter com­mu­ni­ties have not been ne­glect­ed.

The min­istry points to Gov­ern­ment’s “leg­isla­tive frame­works to tack­le squat­ting sus­tain­ably” and not­ed the work of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA), un­der­scor­ing that it op­er­ates un­der Sec­tion 5(4) of the State Land (Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure) Act (SLRT).

“The LSA’s pol­i­cy frame­work in­deed in­cor­po­rates the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of squat­ters, the cre­ation of land set­tle­ment zones, and the sup­port of leas­es for qual­i­fied squat­ters,” the min­istry’s state­ment ob­served.

“These ini­tia­tives have al­ready yield­ed pos­i­tive re­sults in nu­mer­ous lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Pine Set­tle­ment, Windy Hill, and Cashew Gar­dens. Res­i­dents in these com­mu­ni­ties have ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant ad­vance­ments in in­fra­struc­ture—such as roads, elec­tric­i­ty, san­i­ta­tion, and clean drink­ing wa­ter—es­sen­tial for al­le­vi­at­ing the neg­a­tive ef­fects of squat­ting on pub­lic health and safe­ty. These ef­forts ex­tend be­yond mere ad­min­is­tra­tive mea­sures—they sig­ni­fy con­sid­er­able, con­crete en­hance­ments in the qual­i­ty of life for thou­sands of cit­i­zens,” it added.

“The 2017 pol­i­cy for Cer­tifi­cate of Com­fort hold­ers to tran­si­tion to Statu­to­ry Leas­es,” the hous­ing min­istry says, “pro­vides squat­ters with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain le­gal ti­tle to the land they oc­cu­py, of­fer­ing long-term se­cu­ri­ty of tenure and the abil­i­ty to use that lease as col­lat­er­al for fi­nanc­ing.”

Oth­er ini­tia­tives the min­istry not­ed in its state­ment in­clude the Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion and Re­gen­er­a­tion of Com­mu­ni­ties in the Greater Port of Spain Re­gion Pro­gramme; the Ten­an­cy Pol­i­cy in­tro­duced in 2020 to fa­cil­i­tate reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of squat­ters who do not fall un­der the SLRT Act, by giv­ing them short-term ten­an­cy agree­ments that can lead to an op­por­tu­ni­ty for long-term reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion; and the HVIP launched in 2017, which of­fers free starter homes to fam­i­lies liv­ing in sub­stan­dard con­di­tions

How­ev­er, notwith­stand­ing the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of ini­tia­tives to deal with squat­ting the min­istry out­lined in its state­ment, it al­so re­minds the pub­lic that squat­ting is il­le­gal.

“Squat­ting is il­le­gal, with many in­di­vid­u­als know­ing­ly oc­cu­py­ing state lands de­spite evic­tion no­tices,” the min­istry stat­ed. “It is not just a mat­ter of hous­ing short­age—it is a vi­o­la­tion of the law that un­der­mines na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.”

It added: “Re­gard­less of [land] own­er­ship, il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion re­mains un­law­ful. Squat­ting is not jus­ti­fied by un­cer­tain­ty; it is a vi­o­la­tion of the law, plain and sim­ple.”

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, there are “long-term con­se­quences of un­reg­u­lat­ed land oc­cu­pa­tion”.

“Squat­ting on State lands, par­tic­u­lar­ly in en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive ar­eas like for­est re­serves and agri­cul­tur­al zones, has far-reach­ing con­se­quences for both the en­vi­ron­ment and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Unchecked squat­ting en­croach­es on vi­tal re­sources, dis­rupts na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture, and cre­ates pub­lic health risks,” the min­istry ex­plained.

“It is not just an is­sue of hous­ing; it is an is­sue of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” it ar­gues. “The Gov­ern­ment’s stance on en­force­ment, as un­pop­u­lar as it may be in some quar­ters, is es­sen­tial to pro­tect the broad­er pub­lic in­ter­est.”