A demolition in Coopers Pen revived Jamaica’s squatting debate. But the policy framework to fix it has existed since 2006, and post-Melissa data shows informal housing was 18 times more likely to be destroyed.

Land titles arent just paperwork, the Prime Minister says. Jamaicas long push to formalise informal settlements is being framed as a direct tool against generational poverty.

Land titles arent just paperwork, the Prime Minister says. Jamaicas long push to formalise informal settlements is being framed as a direct tool against generational poverty.

Land titles arent just paperwork, the Prime Minister says. Jamaicas long push to formalise informal settlements is being framed as a direct tool against generational poverty.

60 percent of urban Jamaicans live in unplanned housing, worse than nearly every other country in the region, Holness told Parliament. He also named the reason it persists: squatter communities are significant voting blocs.

The concept of the “ghetto” in Jamaica is deeply intertwined with the country’s history of colonialism, slavery, political evolution, and social inequality.…

In a Gleaner letter, Devon Dick urged the Government to consult the church on regularising captured lands, pointing to church-led Free Villages after Emancipation and clergy efforts to stop demolitions at Paradise Heights in the 1990s.

Food For The Poor said it could build 60 houses a month in Jamaica but was averaging about 30, because many applicants live on captured or untitled land, and it appealed to landowners to lease or donate parcels.

A 2017 commission found a quarter of Jamaicans live in irregular settlements and 40 percent of occupied land has no documented ownership. Thats a land tenure problem the NHTs financing model alone cant fix.

A Montego Bay businessman first proposed regularising squatter settlements in 2000. Fifteen years later, hes still making the case, and most of it still hasnt happened.