THE National Housing Trust (NHT) is reminding persons with disabilities, who contribute, of the benefits available to them through the entity to acquire a home.

Assistant general manager for corporate communications and public affairs at the NHT, Dwayne Berbick said the Trust reserves units in all its developments for persons with disabilities.

“One of the tools the NHT has is called a Special Benefits Order which allows the NHT to reserve units in its developments for special categories of contributors. Those include our young professionals, our civil servants, and also our persons with disabilities. So, in every NHT development the NHT reserves units for persons with disabilities,” he told JIS News.

“We actually, since the last two years…made an adjustment to the policy to take it a step further in terms of not just allocating the unit for the person with the disability but, upon selection, what the NHT will do as well is to make modifications to the property to suit the individual with the disability — at no extra cost to the person,” he added.

Berbick said at one of the NHT’s developments, at Roseneath Park in St Catherine, the entity was able to put in a ramp and lower the cupboards.

“A gentleman who was in a wheelchair, we were able to put in the ramps for him, lower the cupboards, and we were able to put railings in the bathroom so he can better navigate himself in that particular space. We did all that retrofitting at no extra cost,” he noted.

On the matter of the Special Grant for Persons with Disabilities, Berbick said the NHT plans to work with the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) to encourage persons to apply for the grant.

The Special Grant for Persons with Disabilities assists any contributing NHT mortgagor with a disability, or who cares for a relative with a disability, residing in the same household, to retrofit or upgrade the mortgaged property to meet the needs of the person(s) with the disability.

“We have a good relationship with the JCPD because, for both the grant and also for the scheme selection, the contributors who are looking to benefit and access them must be registered. So, in fact, especially for the scheme component, we work very closely with the JCPD because the individuals put in their applications through the JCPD,” Berbick said.

“So, when the units are reserved we write to the JCPD and we advise them that this development has been completed and we have units in it for persons with disabilities, and we tell them the number. So, they will look now at their database and amongst their membership to see if there are individuals in that area who would qualify to become a homeowner in one of these units,” he added.

However, Berbick noted that sometimes there is not a, “great take-up, and so we continue to work with the JCPD in terms of promoting and in terms of encouraging individuals to, of course, get registered, because that’s the major prerequisite to be able to access these benefits”.

“So, we do have a current relationship with the JCPD, and we do meet from time to time to see what some of the gaps are and to see some of the areas that we can work together to strengthen the communication and, ultimately, the take-up of these benefits that the NHT has,” he said.