“If I can afford to pay my rent on time for years then why can’t I qualify for a home loan?”

This is a question I get asked daily in Jamaica by varying demographics. The simple answer: Because you don’t check the bank’s boxes for mortgage qualification.

Every day I meet people who ask for my help navigating their financial struggles as they hustle to make ends meet. I have concluded that Jamaicans are among the best at figuring out how to make life work regardless of the little means at their disposal. It is hard for most. Balancing the meagre resources to put a roof over their heads, pay utilities, and eat requires constant thinking and stress. Yet one constant never changes — every Jamaican wants to own their own home, even if it is only one room for them and their family.

Rather than paying rent to someone, they would prefer to use that money towards a mortgage or home loan. However, for many of them, commercial banks and credit unions will not approve them for a home loan because they cannot show on paper how they will make the monthly payments, especially if they are self-employed.

Indeed, a financially independent institution that lends its depositors money must take the necessary precautions to ensure that the money is repaid. But they must understand that many of these people that they turn away are the ones that have established and sustained the “same-day loan shark” companies who are charging double and sometimes triple the commercial bank interest rate.

Therefore, if people can find the money to make these monthly payments, as well as others who make weekly hire purchase payments for furniture, for example, then why can’t we identify a means to assist them in making their lives easier?

Until we grow our economy and increase the purchasing power and per capita income of the majority of our people, then, as a country, we must start meeting people where they are while giving them the opportunities to forge forward within their means.

Too many Jamaican citizens feel overwhelmed by the system’s abuse of them. This is why so many want to leave for other economies, which give them a chance if they work hard. Then we see them working two or three jobs overseas and churlishly remark: “How can they work so hard over there but not here?” They know that if they work hard that system allows them to build their credit, buy food, own a car, or buy a home. Our Jamaican system does not.

SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE

According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, human needs can be organsed into five categories; from most basic to most complex. Our most basic needs are our physiological ones — the need for food, water, shelter, and sleep.

What are we doing to meet our people’s basic needs? Right now, they are paying some of the highest food prices in the world. The traffic congestion on the roads makes them arrive home late and forces them to wake up before dawn. Finding an affordable home close to where they work is difficult.

For years, university students, for example, have been told that getting a good degree is the path to success. Then they graduate, but the jobs they can find will not give them a future. Many still live with a family member to make ends meet. So they migrate.

How does this help Jamaica when our best and brightest sons and daughters leave?

Rather than continue to measure our development through macroeconomic stability at the forefront of our mind, we should incorporate a metric wherein a university graduate can move into his own home and live adequately after three years of working.

Investing in our people’s basic needs agenda ultimately leads to their self-actualisation. It suggests that we are putting them first.

Other countries have developed credit score systems that monitor people’s payment patterns and assign them credit scores. Based on their credit score, they can readily access funding. They are also given the ability to monitor and improve their credit scores as they improve their financial standing.

Our Government could fund a similar system here, whereby people using their tax registration number (TRN) enter all the payments they make; that is, utilities, hire purchase, rent, and groceries; if they use cash they upload the receipts of payments. This would establish their purchase and payment patterns/capabilities. Accordingly, they could apply for an easily audited credit score that would qualify them for creditworthiness within various categories.

I am sure there are other suggestions that would benefit our people and help them improve their lives in Jamaica. Unfortunately, we have been forcing our people to conform to standards established 50 years ago, instead of innovating modern approaches for their current realities.

Furthermore, we have overcomplicated the systems to assist. For example, the food assistance I allocated from my Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to my four councillors to help the shut-in residents in their divisions for Hurricane Beryl required them to get their name, telephone number, TRN, or ID, or the municipal corporation would not disburse the payments to the wholesales or supermarkets. I know from experience that many of our shut-ins don’t have phones and that some of the beneficiaries he gave have since died. We are talking about a $5000 or US$32.00 grocery bag. Even then, people must provide extensive personal details. So, yes, the Government already has the details for those at the extreme bottom to the extreme top.

Whichever party is voted in as the new Government next year should focus on improving the lives of Jamaicans in the current global reality. This would mean listening to the people, identifying their top three basic needs, and developing meaningful, innovative systems to address them.

The Jamaican proverb “Stay pon di crooked and cut straight,” indicates that even if something appears wrong or messy initially, it can still lead to a positive outcome. It is time we help Jamaicans optimise their living experiences.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.