By TAMARA McKENZIE, Assistant News Editor, tamara@nasguard.com -

A former housing minister on Monday criticized the government for shelving its low-cost housing program, claiming that more than 10,000 applicants with low-incomes would now find it impossible to meet the home ownership criteria for private companies, and more than 250 contractors hired by the Housing Ministry are now in search of other jobs.

"A country as affluent as The Bahamas should be able to meet its housing challenges and the government has a moral responsibility to continue the program and to find creative ways to assist those who cannot afford to go to private companies," said Neville Wisdom, a former housing minister under the Progressive Liberal Party administration. "If there was a huge medical emergency that needed to be addressed during a catastrophe, the government would respond, so they should also respond to the housing needs of Bahamians."

Last week, Minister of Housing Kenneth Russell revealed that the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation was not able to assist in the funding required to move the housing program forward, because it had to clear up a number of bills. He said the corporation was owed more than $9 million by the Department of Housing for projects completed since and before 2002.

Russell said that in June 2002, The Bahamas Mortgage Corporation had a cash flow of $6,700,000, and by May of 2007, it owed, and still owes, the National Insurance Board $7 million for an unsecured loan it obtained in February 2007. According to Russell, it was evident from as early as January 2006 that the pace of development had outstripped the funding available for the housing program.

But Wisdom has claimed otherwise.

The former housing minister said there was a difference between the PLP and the FNM, and the basic tenets of the PLP were based on two principles — to provide a better quality of life for its people and to provide opportunity for all.

"We don't say one group of people should be disadvantaged," said Wisdom. "We say everybody should be advantaged and we need to come up with creative and innovative ideas to address some of the challenges that we have in this country, including housing challenges."

He said when the PLP took office in 2002 they also met the hefty bill of more than $9 million owed by the Department of Housing to the Mortgage Corporation for projects completed. But the PLP, he said, did not use this figure as an "excuse" not to proceed.

"We opted to take a bold initiative and the former [housing] minister [Shane Gibson] brought to Cabinet and eventually to Parliament his request for funding to assist in meeting this immediate and dire need," Wisdom said.

On the other hand, Housing Minister Russell revealed last week that the PLP administration's aggressive attempts to build houses on 24 subdivisions in New Providence and select Family Islands, as well as on scattered sites in New Providence, have resulted in legal requirements not being met as it relates to the availability and readiness of the homes.

Wisdom said the Housing Minister was now beginning to understand the challenges that the government is faced with in meeting a housing crisis. He said more than 10,000 persons in New Providence alone and more than 4,000 in Grand Bahama have made requests for affordable homes and many were qualified.

"The PLP was trying as quickly as we could to try and address the challenges of this crisis," he explained. "The last initiative that I was taking part in was to try to solicit the support of the private sector in helping the government to meet some of the housing needs, because we understood fully that the government alone could not address all of those needs. We also advanced discussions with some of the large churches, some of the managers of pension funds and some of the local private developers with a view toward a cooperative effort in addressing the housing needs of the country."

Wisdom said while the requests for housing continued to grow, he encouraged Bahamians who qualify to receive a house from a private company to do so because low-cost housing is really for the "poor people."

In the meantime, former Housing Minister Shane Gibson, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, often touted the former government's success when it came to its housing initiative. Before the Progressive Liberal Party vacated office on May 2, a total of 1,316 homes had been fully completed and 70 were under construction. The last government subdivision built by the former government was Dignity Gardens off Carmichael Road.

The Dept. of Housing was allocated a total of $1,199,074 in the 2007/08 fiscal budget, while the Ministry of Housing and National Insurance received $6, 332,215.