A NHC customer service assistant giving advise to an applicant on completing the form. (GP)

The National Housing Corporation’s (NHC) mortgage fair held last weekend in Golden Square, Bridgetown, was deemed a success, as thousands of Barbadians gathered to register for housing solutions and gain their mortgage certificates.

The mortgage fair was conceptualised to help NHC officials determine who qualified and for what type of housing solutions, in an effort to help eliminate the 20-year backlog.

Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance, Dwight Sutherland, in noting that there was a backlog of 25,000 applicants said: “I am pleased to report that the team sat and went through all those applicants.… and found some persons are deceased and some have applied three or four times. So, we have analysed that data and can say clearly we only have close to 3,000 eligible applicants left earning under two thousand [dollars],” he stated.

Minister Sutherland said that the fair was just the start of the NHC’s public relations and marketing campaign, “to tell Barbadians we are very serious about building 10,000 houses”, as he reaffirmed Government’s commitment to providing housing solutions.

He disclosed that to date, 771 houses had been completed while another 1,400 were expected to be built by the end of the year.

General Manager of NHC, Ian Gill, underscored the importance of the fair. “The aim here, through Home Ownership Providing Energy (HOPE) advance, is to offer people who make under 2000 dollars a home, and they’re so many persons in this island … who would want that opportunity….

“We brought in some Dura Villa houses and we’ve brought in some East West houses, which people know as Chinese houses .… one is finished at Scotts Gap in Brittons Hill, and we have 15 more under construction of the East West houses,” Mr. Gill stated. Approximately 10,000 persons visited the mortgage fair.

fabian.belgrave@barbados.gov.bb

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