As is the case for much else, poverty is the reason so many Jamaicans live in vulnerable, informal, marginalised locations such as the very edge of gullies, rivers, in flood-prone areas, and so forth.

Until Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness said as much in recent days, many Jamaicans did not know that living closer than 20 feet to the edge of a gully is actually in breach of the law.

Poverty is the reason so many — referred to as squatters — live illegally on lands owned by other people as well as the State. People live in informal, vulnerable locations not by choice, but often because of landlessness — poverty’s direct offspring.

Poverty is also the real reason an estimated 11 per cent of adult Jamaicans are illiterate. In the latter respect, we may perhaps take some comfort that, at the time of political independence in 1962, close to half of the adult population was said to be unable to read. And, whether we want to admit it or not, widespread poverty is directly linked to our history of enslavement and colonialism.

As has been said here and elsewhere, when slavery was abolished, former slave owners were richly rewarded for their loss of property. Their property — slaves — newly freed in their hundreds of thousands, were left to fend for themselves as best they could.

That’s part of the reason the growing reparation movement represents a just cause.

In the case of education, the harsh truth is that, for generations after slavery ended in the 1830s, British colonisers had little interest in building schools.

To what end? When what the British Empire needed were low-wage labourers to work on wealth-generating sugar plantations, banana plantations, and so forth?

Historically, Jamaica owes much to Christian denominations and charity-based individuals and groups for their role in providing education opportunities for the children of poor people during post-slavery.

However, even with that, large segments of Jamaica’s black underclass remain unschooled, or inadequately so, as pointed out earlier. That’s despite measurable improvements over the last 60/70 years of self-government and political independence.

Since education is usually the catalyst for economic upward mobility of the underclass, many Jamaicans remain hopelessly poor. Against that backdrop, we note Prime Minister Holness’s plan for a long-term project to relocate the impoverished from the banks of gullies, starting with a pilot for four such communities.

As we understand it, Dr Holness is largely motivated by the dangers posed by climate-related disasters such as catastrophic Hurricane Melissa, which devastated sections of Jamaica a year ago.

Recently, he urged residents of low-lying, highly vulnerable coastal community Parottee, in St Elizabeth, which was ravaged by Melissa, to move to safer areas. He has also spoken of the need to relocate people in squatter communities such as bulldozed Cooper’s Pen in Trelawny.

We do not expect that the cost of relocation should always be borne entirely by our resource-starved Government. It makes sense that those getting help should also strive to help themselves.

But how is that to happen if they have nothing?

That question underlies the reality that, beyond all else, not just Government — but all Jamaicans — must somehow find a way to directly and comprehensively confront and defeat impoverishment, which has haunted this country for much too long.