For centuries, the matter of housing for the poor and working class has been used to win votes, buy votes, or punish people for voting. Politicians have no issue cramming thousands of people into small boxes to establish and secure voting blocs in cities. So, schemes and settlements for the poor and working class are accommodated wherever and however possible for votes.
Politicians know that the people will give their eye teeth for a roof of their own over their heads. So, even if it means putting tiny units on arable land in flood-prone areas or anywhere else, it will be done as the silly political season is upon us.
The National Housing Trust (NHT) was established in the 1970s by the government led by Prime Minister Michael Manley as a system to abandon this political housing football field and give the power to the people to buy and build their own homes at affordable rates.
Communities like Portmore and Angels in St. Catherine exemplify what the ordinary folk can do if given a studio starter house on a tightly fitted plot of land.
So, the NHT’s mandate was to increase and enhance the housing stock in the country, primarily by offering low-interest mortgages to contributors for building, buying, or repairing homes, and by developing housing schemes for sale.
But, like all other agencies that offer benefits to the masses, the NHT is a primary vote-winning machine. Compensation for public servants, the minimum wage, the income tax threshold, the school feeding programme, student loans, and nearly all other social benefits have been flung into the middle of the political football field, where many support one party or the other at the behest of unconscionable politicians.
Politicians on the hustings are well aware that wages, especially for public servants, have remained unliveable to the point that many have fallen out of the middle class and are among the working poor.
Too low wages have been the cry of too many Jamaican workers in nearly every sector for way too long. Not even the recent 30% minimum wage increase last year, and the promise to add another $1000 this year, can provide any reasonable relief for these menial and manual workers who were way too far beneath the poverty line for that to matter.
The political promise of a higher minimum wage is good for earners at the bottom of the labour market, but a potent threat to the middle class, who employ thousands of domestic helpers, gardeners, and other manual workers. This largely professional group has been shrinking in size and stature as they feverishly cut costs to maintain a reasonable standard of living. Many, including nurses, doctors, teachers, and security personnel, have gradually slid from the middle to land at the bottom, among the fast-growing class loosely labelled the working poor.
The working poor account for a huge chunk of those numbered among the employed and are the centrepiece of the government’s boast about low unemployment numbers.
Regardless of the social class or status, the people of Jamaica live in a democracy and have the right to choose their government by way of ballot and not for benefits.
The right to vote was fiercely fought for and hard won. That battle should have ended in 1944, when all adults in the society, regardless of gender, class, creed, propertied or not, were accorded the right to cast a vote in a national election.
That right was wrapped in a raging bloodbath that brought the trade union movement to the fore and militarised the nation’s workforce. Both the voting rights and the unions were shouldered on the painful struggles of sugar workers who were terribly disadvantaged, abused, and grossly underpaid.
Trade unions emerged when lumpen workers – men and women, the direct descendants of enslaved people – stood together and fought against unconscionable employers, in government and the private sector.
Workers’ unions might have changed the widely accepted trajectory of abusing the underclass in many workplaces, but hardly changed the minds and attitudes of the celebrated abusers who occupied political positions, corner offices, and boardrooms.
Somewhere between the 1940s and 2025, the nation took some giant steps backwards in the area of worker rights, compensation, and politicking.
Some backward steps have also been taken by the church that once faced down colonial injustice in Sam Sharpe Square and stood like David against Goliath when wickedness reared its ugly head in Morant Bay.
The budget that is currently being debated in Gordon House is an election configuration that promises great benefits to win votes or to dissuade voting.
When God created Eden, he placed in it everything humanity would ever need for abundant life. There was no shortage in God’s creation when He gave man dominion over it. He did not give politicians any right to determine who gets benefits and who does not based on personal support and affiliation.
Political inequity emerges when man rejects God, refuses to repent, and displays savage inhumanity towards those they lead. Some grab for the lion’s share of all things, thinking that they are gods, believing their own hype and self-aggrandisement, while the masses forage for the widow’s mite or scour the dumps for the discarded.
If there was ever a need for a righteous voice to speak to and for the people, it is now. It is not acceptable that those who claim to represent God continue to stand silently in the shadows as witnesses watching pot-bellied politicians woo the masses again, with the certain knowledge that the same system of corruption, failed promises, and deprivation is at play.
Is there not a righteous cause?