HAJ Plans 866 Housing Units in 2023/24 as Agency Pursues 14,000-Solution Government Mandate

Kingston, Jamaica — 14 March 2023

The Housing Agency of Jamaica has set a target of delivering 866 housing units in the 2023-24 fiscal year, drawn primarily from two joint venture developments: 521 units from its Catherine Estates project at Bernard Lodge in St. Catherine, and 345 units from Edmond Ridge in St. James. The targets are part of the agency’s contribution to the government’s broader mandate of 14,000 housing solutions, a figure that encompasses HAJ’s social housing, indigent housing, and collaborative programmes with the NHT.

The Housing Agency of Jamaica occupies a specific position in Jamaica’s housing delivery architecture that is distinct from the NHT. Where the NHT primarily serves contributing workers through a mortgage finance mechanism, the HAJ focuses on housing for lower-income Jamaicans who may not have the contribution history or income level to qualify for NHT loans. The HAJ’s portfolio includes social rental housing, indigent housing programmes, and joint-venture developments at accessible price points. Its mandate is to serve the segment of the population that the market and the NHT combined are least likely to reach.

The New Social Housing Programme

The HAJ facilitates the New Social Housing Programme, which is administered through the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation under the HOPE initiative. This programme targets the indigent, with specific priority given to the physically challenged and otherwise vulnerable populations. As of October 2022, approximately 100 units had been delivered to beneficiaries under this programme — a modest but meaningful number for the households who received them.

Social housing of this nature is not delivered at market cost, nor is it expected to be. The HAJ’s indigent housing programme represents a direct subsidy — units built at public expense for households that cannot participate in any market transaction. The 100 units delivered to that point represent the social floor of Jamaica’s housing delivery system: housing for people who cannot help themselves in any market sense.

Inner-City Collaboration with NHT

The HAJ is also collaborating with the NHT to construct 126 housing units in densely populated inner-city communities, including 24 units designated for residents displaced by a fire in 2019. Inner-city housing delivery is among the most complex challenges in Jamaica’s housing programme: land is constrained, existing residents have to be managed during construction, and the communities themselves require sensitive engagement. The HAJ’s experience in social housing makes it a more appropriate vehicle for this work than the market-oriented private sector.

Beyond the 2023-24 pipeline, the HAJ has upcoming projects at Luana 4 Phase 3 in St. Elizabeth and Hellshire View in St. Catherine, extending its delivery into parishes that have historically received limited formal housing investment from the state.

“The HAJ plays a role in Jamaica’s housing system that tends to be underappreciated,” said Dean Jones, Managing Director of Jamaica Homes. “It serves people the market will never serve. The 866-unit target for 2023-24 is meaningful, but the bigger picture is the 14,000-solution mandate and whether the agency has the resources, the land, and the institutional capacity to deliver at that scale over time. Social housing is expensive and slow. Jamaica needs to invest in it anyway.”

The Broader Housing Architecture

Jamaica’s housing delivery system operates through multiple institutions in parallel: the NHT handling the bulk of mortgage-financed delivery; the HAJ managing social and affordable housing; and the private sector serving market-rate demand. The system works when all three components function simultaneously and serve their respective segments without excessive overlap or gap.

The gap that remains most challenging is the segment between indigent housing and NHT qualification — the working poor who earn too much for social housing but too little to service an NHT mortgage on a formal development. The HAJ’s social rental housing and affordable sale programmes are designed to address part of this gap, but the segment remains the most underserved in Jamaica’s housing economy.