WAKEFIELD, Trelawny — Brenda Grant was elated as she accepted the keys to a new three-bedroom house from Prime Minister Andrew Holness last Friday.

“I give you thanks for this house. I don’t have anything to put in it yet but, by the grace of God, a going in,” said Grant who disclosed that she had been living in substandard conditions for 47 years.

The house was provided under the Government’s new Social Housing Programme and Holness, in handing it over to Grant, pledged that he would continue to be relentless in his efforts to deliver shelter to needy families.

He said that since last year 73 units have been handed over under the programme and he is expecting that figure to swell to about 100 by August.

“It is my commitment — and by now you realise that when I make a commitment to something I am going to do my best, I am going to put my all in it, I don’t go halfway — and so, I am committed to ensuring that we give proper shelter to all Jamaicans,” Holness declcared.

“Already we have built 73 such units between this year and last year, the bulk of them being this year. We have improved the process and the system so now we will be able to deliver at least one or two houses every week, if not more. So, you’re going to be tired fi see mi face in handing over houses,” the prime minister said.

“People who may be watching us on news tonight [Friday] or on social media will also be saying ‘Wait, this man serious! Because for the past four or five months, every Friday, whilst he’s in Jamaica, he is out in some parts of the country handing over a housing solution or two — and sometimes three.’ And yes, we are serious about providing these housing solutions,” he added.

Holness also committed to addressing the needs of the roughly 10,000 households across Jamaica that data suggest are in need of the intervention.

“Churches are aware of them and other groups in the society are aware of them and are trying to assist, and then they come directly to the Office of the Prime Minister or to the Ministry of Housing. So when we take all of that together, we have a rough figure that we probably have about 10,000 households that are in need of this kind of social housing intervention.”

“We wouldn’t be able to do all 10,000 in a year, or even two years. It will take some time. But what we want to do is to put the process in place so that it can start to address the most pressing ones. And I believe we are now at that point where we can address the pressing needs,” he said.

Member of Parliament for Trelawny Northern Tova Hamilton, who welcomed the first unit to be handed over in her constituency under the programme, said that “this is the first of many, many more to come”.

Construction of the unit was completed within six weeks at a cost of $6.5 million.

The prime minister said that more effort will be made to complete the units even faster.

“So what it is telling you is that we are improving our processes, that improvement and efficiency are being shown in the cost (in the affordable cost on the unit) and the quality and speed of delivery of the units,” he said.

“So, I’m very happy with that. We are still, of course, trying to innovate, trying to see how we can improve our administrative and bureaucratic processes to make sure that we can deliver these houses even faster,” Holness continued.

“The technology exists to build a house like this in a week. Once we have refined it to that level of precision, to that level of science and engineering, then we will be able to increase the pace at which we transform… to this,” he said.