The days of people getting Housing Development Corporation (HDC) houses and reneging on their obligation to pay are over.
So said the chairman of the HDC, Noel Garcia.
He said management may soon have to take severe actions as delinquent tenants are owing the state close to $157 million.
These severe measures could include evictions.
The arrears, according to reports, are approximately $6 million more than what the HDC quoted last July, when Housing and Urban Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis blamed delinquent tenants as one of the reasons for the corporation’s failure to meet an outstanding $1.3 billion payment to contractors.
In an interview at the HDC’s first key distribution ceremony at Riverside East, Ste Madeleine, yesterday, Garcia said the HDC will now assemble a special task force to deal with delinquent tenants.
He said the task force will embark on a campaign beginning next month to get these tenants to pay their arrears.
The process will begin with a virtual meeting with Oasis Greens, where some renters and rent-to-own tenants owe $3.4 million, he said.
Garcia said the HDC has approximately 10,000 tenants paying rent, and 55 per cent were in arrears, including some whose fees are as low as $100 per month. Some with Licence-to-Own contracts are also in arrears.
He said, “We are going to embark on the campaign. We are not going to be heartless, but we are going to have to make some very hard decisions, which may entail evictions. As I said, we will do it on a case-by-case basis.”
HDC managing director Jayselle McFarlane also appealed to delinquent tenants to begin or resume their payments by paying their mortgages and rent. She said the HDC had introduced a suite of payment methods that are accessible, convenient, simple and reliable for all.
COMMENTS