Dear Editor,

The National Housing Trust (NHT) is one of the vehicles that has helped many Jamaicans gain the ability to secure the keys, literally and figuratively, to homeownership. However, as with any programme, policy, and legislation, there are often unforeseen circumstances and unintended consequences.

NHT contributions are mandatory for all working Jamaicans, and in a perfect world this would be an equitable way to distribute state benefits and welfare, except it is not. Low income workers hovering around the minimum wage range will never qualify for a home based on income minus their survival expenditure — rent, food, and other necessities.

As we progress up the social ladder and presumably the income ladder, it becomes easier to secure a home using NHT benefits. I am not only referring to the CEO level and top-level workers but even middle-income workers.

While I want middle income workers to secure homes, they do so at the expense of the lowest income earners, who individually contribute the smallest amount to the trust but, collectively, this category of earner contributes a significant amount, without which the fund could not survive. What we now have is the lowest income earners becoming the literal vehicle that takes people who earn more than them along the path of homeownership, a perversion of the original intent of this social programme.

On cue, this is when the defenders of the NHT swoop in with the argument that after a few years contributors receive a refund. This is true, but it still doesn’t remedy the problem of the lowest income earners providing money interest free to higher income earners for years to assist them in getting a home.

Especially with worldwide inflation and the devaluation of the currency eating away at the value of our money, like Pac-Man on steroids, what you find is that the money given over the years is worthless when the refund is given. If the highest and middle income earners were to walk into restaurants and stores and ask the minimum wage employees there for money to own a home, they would laugh in their faces and call them crazy. In this light, NHT is facilitating the same thing as a middleman.

Two solutions immediately come to mind: make NHT contributions voluntary below a certain threshold or pay interest on the funds provided by the lowest income earners since it is their money being used to keep the train on the tracks and, therefore, should be treated like a loan.

Adrean Gentles

gentlesadrean123@gmail.com