Minister with responsibility for housing Dr Horace Chang on Friday expressed gross dissatisfaction with the living conditions of residents of some West Kingston communities.

“As a minister of housing I am most embarrassed that we in Jamaica today are having residents living in this kind of condition,” said Chang, a minister of state in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation in the Office of the Prime Minister.

“The conditions are not acceptable for residents. We are evaluating the situation and will be taking some decision to rehabilitate the situation,” he said.

His comments came while he toured Board Villa, a section of Wellington Street in Denham Town. It was built some 20 years ago and was meant to provide temporary housing. Its wooden buildings, set close to each other in a large tenement complex, are in desperate need of repair.

Chang also toured Tivoli Gardens, which also suffers from detetriorating buildings, but where the major concern was raw sewage running in the streets.

“I have heard the cries of the member of parliament Desmond McKenzie, but in fact when you get a chance to take a look at it first hand, you get a much more graphic impression of what is happening there, and you get a better feel of what is happening… This government will have to do something to bring about some correction of the problem down here, and I know that the Member of Parliament will stay close to and will work together to bring some improvement to the quality of life,” Chang said.

Friday’s tour came on the heels of an announcement that the Government will be undertaking major work to improve social infrastructure and amenities in the gritty West Kingston.

The housing minister said that the intervention, which is expected to address water, sewage and housing, will not be done overnight and that the work has to begin in the course of this year. He noted that there are communities in a similar state in Jamaica, including some in his St James North Western constituency, but gave no indication as to whether or not those will be addressed.

Meanwhile, McKenzie, who orchestrated the tour, stressed that improvement in behaviour and attitude would have to accompany the improved infrastructure.

“First of all, infrastructure with the same kind of attitude and with the same kind of people in the new infrastructure, then perhaps the person who come 10 years after me will still be talking about the (issue). We going to have a total new dispensation, not just in terms of the physical structure, but in terms of human resource that is going to occupy the infrastructure in the area, so this is a general appeal to the constituency of West Kingston,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie, while noting that the government is operating in a tight budgetary space, said that the constituency has been neglected for over 20 years.

“The last development done in West Kingston was undertaken by the Honourable Edward Seaga. So it tells you how far back those developments go. So it is important that the Government is attuned to the concerns of the communities and listens to the voice of the people because there is a heavy concentration of crime in sections of West Kingston, and one of the contributing factors of crime is the environment that people live in. People get up every day and sewage… is a part of their daily way of life. I am hoping and I am staying positive that we will see a change, not just in how the people operate,” McKenzie said.

Representatives from varying stakeholder groups relevant to the advancement of West Kingston were part of the tour that covered sections of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town.