Devon Anderson (left) and his brother, Delroy, hope for better times in Windsor Heights. Here, they stand outside their retail shop.
Many of the problems in Windsor Heights stem from the fact that it is still considered a squatter settlement.
According to pronouncements from Minister of Housing Horace Chang, just over one million Jamaicans live in informal communities.
A paper titled Social Housing in the Caribbean, presented in 2006 by Jimmy Kazaara Tindigarukayo, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies' Sir Arthur Lewis Institute, at the Jamaica Conference Centre in 2006, stated: "The illegal occupation of land and/or buildings that characterise squatting historically resulted from the colonial experience of concentrating land in the hands of a minority, for example, in the plantation owners of the West Indies or the settler farmers in East and southern Africa. The majority of the people were left landless, with the option of either living as wage labourers on the farms and plantations or illegally occupying land and living as squatters."
Entitlement process
In 2004, some 1,200 families had their land surveyed in the community.
Sharon Hay-Webster, the member of parliament, told The Gleaner that entitlement is close to being completed and said residents are waiting with bated breath.
"We are close to completing entitlement, so now that the UDC (Urban Development Corporation) is handing over these back lands, such as Zambia and Oakland, for housing, we can probably settle the price and start having people pay for their lands or work out an agreement for payment. The development is being formalised," she disclosed.
However, the UDC told The Gleaner that the agency was pursuing a mandate to return to its core function of designing and implementing development plans in designated areas and would no longer be regularising unauthorised settlements.
"The UDC is in the process of transferring approximately 117 acres of land at Windsor Heights, St Catherine, to the Ministry of Water and Housing, which will assume responsibility for the process of entitlement with the residents," the corporation said.
mark.beckford@gleanerjm.com
An example of the board houses which once overran Windsor Heights, St Catherine.