The government will provide housing in Union Island for islanders who are still living in rented accommodation in St. Vincent as a result of Hurricane Beryl, which impacted the country on July 1, 2024.
Prime Minister Godwin Friday said that returning Unionites to their homes and getting businesses operating again are essential for the continued recovery of the island.
“And we have addressed and are addressing this problem as a government and cabinet,” he said on Boom FM on Wednesday — Christmas Eve.
“We have had conversations with the minister of housing and the minister of education as to how we are going to ensure that those persons are able to go back to their communities.
“For those who are from the Southern Grenadines, primarily Union Island, to make arrangements for them to find housing there, because that has been the problem. But they don’t have housing here on the mainland either, unless they are renting accommodations at guest houses.”
Thousands of people from the southern Grenadine islands of Mayreau, Canouan and Union Island were displaced when Hurricane Beryl tracked across the Southern Grenadines, damaging more than 90% of buildings there.
Many of the displaced people moved to St. Vincent as the then Unity Labour Party (ULP) government repaired their homes.
However, Friday, who led the New Democratic Party (NDP) to victory in the Nov. 27 general election, has repeatedly decried the pace of recovery as too slow, making the point to radio listeners again on Wednesday.
“So, the question is that now that you have the electricity back on, the roads are cleared, telephones, everything is working, the community is back to normal. Why not relocate those persons to Union Island, which is where they prefer to be?”
He said it was understandable that this could not be done in the early days after the cyclone.
“But those communities have been rebuilding. They’ve reached a point now that people can be accommodated back in Union Island. So that is what we are going to do. We are working on that very, very feverishly in our administration.”
As part of the recovery effort, the ULP government had refurbished the former Teachers’ College campus in Arnos Vale, St. Vincent, to house students from the two primary schools and the secondary school in Union Island.
Most of the students have since returned to their campuses in Union Island, while others have enrolled in other schools across the country.
The prime minister said that the school at Arnos Vale has “one or two people in a class”.
He said the government has decided to integrate those students into other schools and close the campus at Arnos Vale.
“And then those persons who wish to return, which will be most of them, that we will provide the accommodations that we are doing here, why not do it there?”
Friday, however, said this will take “a little time, unfortunately, because the past government should have been doing that to begin with.
“The whole notion that you could just simply leave people here and in limbo, you’re not providing any food, you’re not providing jobs for them. … sometimes the rent is not being paid, and they’re just there in limbo, that is something that we are going to address
“And it’s better to take the persons from there, if we have to provide similar accommodations, or to build the prefab houses, that we can house those persons in a temporary basis, back in their communities.”
He said that the previous government had imported about 100 prefabricated houses, meaning that the bulk of the order is yet to arrive in the country.
“… but there have been some problems, I’m told, with the construction and putting them in certain areas where they’re not flat land and so forth. It’s been problematic. So, we have to review,” the prime minister said.
Friday said he had spoken with Minister of Housing, Andrew John, about this.
“… we have to review how that programme is going to unfold, whether we go ahead with it or we change and say let’s build here using materials that we have here and so forth,” the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the prime minister said on Hot 97 FM that the ULP administration had focused on getting people back into their homes.
The prime minister said this was fine, but it was done to the exclusion of businesses, adding that the government provided little, if any, assistance to businesses.
“I don’t see why you had to do one or the other,” he said, adding that focusing on both the repair of homes and businesses would have helped to ensure that people have jobs.
“Instead, they’re here (in St. Vincent), and then the government gave them some assistance,” Friday said, adding that the displaced people live in rented accommodation but the landlords want them to leave.
“… and then there are no jobs, and governments stop providing food assistance and paying the rent sometimes, and the people were left in kind of limbo.”
My concern is how are going to deal with those people who are from the mainland who were renting and working in the grenadines. And don’t have land or property of their own here. At the same time what’s of the people who are still living under taurpolins and haven’t been getting assistant from the government. Likewise the eventual workers whose homes are not in Andy way comfortable yet are requested to perform to the best of their ability. I think we need to start fourcasting on making these sector of people more comfortable. So that they can carry out their work with less stressful