Core homes, HIS initiative reach Sophia

ALMOST 120 RESIDENTS FROM SOPHIA will get Home Improvement Subsidy (HIS) from
the government calculated at some $59M, Housing and Water Minister, Collin Croal, said.
Croal said the funding will be accessed for the 118 residents under the Ministry’s Adequate
Housing and Urban Accessibility Programme (AHUAP). Said too that another 50 residents will
benefit from core homes valued at $200M.
“Before the week is finished, we will be having a contract signing for a number of beneficiaries
for our subsidy programme and we also have the core homes,” he said in a Department of Public
Information (DPI).
Under the home improvement subsidy programme, a resident will receive $500,000 in the form
of building materials for repairs to walls and floors, and for electrical works and sanitation
improvement, among others rehabilitation efforts to make their structures more livable.
A similar programme was done for communities between Georgetown to Grove on the East
Bank of Demerara, and from the capital city up to La Bonne Intention (PBI) on the East Coast of
Demerara.
The initiative was also carried out at Westminster, Onderneeming, Recht-Door-Zee, Lust en
Rust, and La Parfaite Harmonie Phase II on the West Bank of Demerara in Essequibo
Inlands/West Demerara (Region Three).
The housing and water ministry recently expanded the project to include 19 communities on the
East Coast of Demerara, stretching to Victoria.
The vision of the $US28\M AHUAP initiative is to help improve housing conditions while
providing access to basic infrastructure for low-income communities.
Under the plan, some 250 Core Houses will be constructed and 2,000 HIS anticipated to be
disbursed through this Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funded scheme.

Last month, over 140 low-income residents of La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara
in Region Three, signed contracts to benefit from core homes and the HIS programme,
Minister Croal disclosed.