Relief Coming to Fond St. Jacques Residents as Government Implements a New Strategy
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Relief Coming to Fond St. Jacques Residents as Government Implements a New Strategy |
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Contact: Shannon LeBourne
Monday, August 08, 2011 – The Government of Saint Lucia is working in earnest to secure affordable housing for residents of Fond St. Jacques who were most affected by Hurricane Tomas.
The Ministry of Finance has secured funding for the development of a new housing settlement in Mocca Soufriere where the Fond St. Jacques residents will be relocated.
Director of the National Reconstruction and Development Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister Elizabeth Charles Soomer explains that the development is an integral part of government’s sustained intervention to bring normalcy to the lives of the Fond St. Jacques residents.
“Alot of farmers have lost a lot of their lands and livelihood and some residents have been dislocated, there has been support from the Soufriere Development Foundation and the Government of Saint Lucia to keep these people in the accommodation where they are at the present moment but we are moving with haste to look at a resettlement scheme in a nearby area called Mocca but as we appreciate we come from a developing country and Saint Lucia is not a welfare state so there is nothing like free housing so to speak but what we are trying to do is to partner with the Red Cross and a Trust Fund Company to deliver a mix of housing types that matches the affordability level of the affected people.”
The Fond St. Jacques community in the southern town of Soufriere was reportedly at the center of the destruction caused by Hurricane Tomas – with several homes being destroyed. Charles Soomer says preparations for the establishment of the new housing development are well advanced. “The site was identified by a Housing Committee set up by the Prime Minister following the hurricane it was taken over by the National Reconstruction and Development Unit because the funding became available. We have undertaken a socio-economic assessment of every single house owner and we have been able to link the names that we received from the various agencies that have done the earlier assessments with a house on a map because we have a pre Tomas understanding from an aerial photograph of what there was, so rather than having large meetings we have met with everybody individually and undertaken a thorough socio-economic assessment so on the basis of that we are looking at a twenty lot sub-division,” Charles Soomer said.
The new development at Mocca will be equipped with the necessary infrastructure of a housing development.
The funding for the development was secured through a gift from a Trust Fund Company. |
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