PRIME MINISTER ANDREW HOLNESS MUST MOVE TO FINALLY END SQUATTING
MR. PRIME MINISTER, WE ALREADY KNOW SQUATTING IS WRONG
The question is why successive Jamaican governments have allowed hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans to live in circumstances where squatting became their only realistic route to shelter. It is critical to addressing this problem that this distinction is made.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has spoken forcefully about squatting and informal settlements in Jamaica, particularly against the background of the demolition of homes at Cooper’s Pen in Trelawny. Few reasonable Jamaicans will argue that people have an unrestricted right to occupy somebody else's land. Private property rights must mean something. Court orders must mean something. A legitimate landowner has a legal right to recover his or her property. But while that settles the legal question, it does not settle the much bigger social, economic and historical question as to why, almost 188 years after Emancipation and 64 years after Independence, there are so many Jamaicans still forced to choose between squatting and homelessness? That is the question our political leaders must answer.
THIS DID NOT BEGIN AT COOPER’S PEN
Squatting in Jamaica is not a new phenomenon created by indiscipline, criminality or some recent breakdown in respect for property rights. The root of this issue stretches directly back into the post-Emancipation period where Slavery ended, but the newly freed population did not suddenly inherit the economic means to participate in a normal property market. They were emancipated largely without land, capital or adequate housing. The plantation economy retained control over much of the most productive land, while thousands of Jamaicans were left to improvise shelter and livelihoods wherever circumstances permitted.
Some of these people established communities on marginal land while others occupied Crown lands or unused private property. And others constructed makeshift settlements around Kingston and the emerging towns. Over generations, occupation became settlement, settlement became community, and community sometimes became accepted fact. During these periods, Government, political representatives, and landowners all knew. Yet the problem was repeatedly allowed to grow until somebody decided that the land had become valuable enough to reclaim. That cycle has been repeating itself for generations.
HARTLEY NEITA WAS WRITING ABOUT THIS DECADES AGO
The late Jamaican journalist Hartley Neita wrote about these issues in My Story and Other Stories. His recollections are important because they remind us that the conflicts we are witnessing today over squatting, land ownership and even access to Jamaica's coastline are not recent developments. Jamaicans were wrestling decades ago with questions about who controlled the country's land and who could enjoy its beaches. As tourism expanded, another contradiction became increasingly obvious. Jamaica marketed its beaches internationally while ordinary Jamaicans sometimes found themselves restricted from accessing sections of the very coastline surrounding their communities. And so over time this conflict has only hardened.
Today, hotels, villas, condominiums, gated developments and short-term rental properties compete for some of Jamaica's most desirable land. The economic value of coastal property has exploded. And suddenly land occupied by poor Jamaicans for decades becomes extraordinarily valuable. We should at least be willing to ask whether some of today's urgency surrounding informal settlements is connected to that transformation.
FROM JAMAICA BEACH TO THE KINGSTON WATERFRONT
Jamaica has been clearing informal settlements in the name of development for generations. One example involved the Kingston waterfront and industrial development along what became Marcus Garvey Drive under the direction of Eddie Seaga as Minister of Development in 1962. The government evicted the fishermen from the then Jamaica Beach fishing village and established the Kingston Esso West Indies Refinery there, as part of the industrial transformation of the waterfront. These developments inevitably collided with existing poor communities and informal settlements and th political lesson learned was significant: land occupied by poor Jamaicans could be cleared and reorganised in the name of development. That philosophy would subsequently become central to the transformation of West Kingston.
TRENCH PEN , REMA AND THE POLITICS OF REDEVELOPMENT
Edward Seaga, as Minister of Development and Member of Parliament for West Kingston, became one of the most important architects of Jamaica's urban redevelopment programme during the 1960s. The redevelopment of areas including Trench Pen and the emergence of Wilton Gardens; popularly known as Rema, demonstrated how government could clear informal or deteriorated settlements and replace them with planned housing. But this was never simply about concrete and steel. Housing became deeply entangled with Jamaican politics. Who received a house, who received employment, who obtained access to scarce government resources, and critically, which political organization controlled the community afterwards?
These questions helped create the system of political clientelism that became embedded in Jamaica's urban political culture. Government housing could therefore accomplish two things simultaneously: address genuine social need while creating political loyalty. That contradiction remains important today.
BACK -O-WALL AND THE BIRTH OF TIVOLI GARDENS
The most famous example came in 1965. The large, impoverished community known as Back-o-Wall was cleared under Seaga's redevelopment programme and replaced by Tivoli Gardens. Back-o-Wall contained poor residents, squatters and a significant Rastafarian presence. Its destruction remains one of the most controversial episodes in Jamaica's post-Independence urban history. Tivoli Gardens, however, represented something dramatically different. It was planned, contained proper housing, roads, community institutions, and it demonstrated an important principle that we appear to have forgotten: You cannot solve informal housing simply by destroying informal housing. You must create somewhere for people to go.
Whatever one's political assessment of Seaga or the subsequent history of Tivoli Gardens, the redevelopment recognised that clearing a settlement required a housing response. That is precisely the issue confronting Jamaica today.
THE DUNGLE WAS ANOTER VERSION OF THE SAME STORY
I have written previously about the destruction of informal communities around West Kingston during this period, including through the fictionalized experiences captured in my own work. The bulldozer has been part of Jamaica's approach to poverty for a very long time.The names change.The locations change.The governments change.But the fundamental confrontation remains remarkably familiar. A poor family occupies land because formal housing is beyond its reach. Years pass. Children are born there. A community develops. Politicians campaign there. Electricity, water, and roads may eventually arrive. Votes certainly arrive. Then one morning somebody discovers that the settlement is illegal. The bulldozers arrive. And everyone suddenly remembers the sanctity of private property.
COOPER’S PEN IS THEREFORE NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT
That is why the recent events at Cooper’s Pen cannot be examined only through the narrow question of whether the occupants possessed legal title. If the courts determined that the property belonged to someone else, then the legitimate owners were entitled to recover it. That should not be controversial. But neither should this:The State has a responsibility to confront the conditions that produce informal settlements in the first place. These are two completely different propositions, and Jamaica should be capable of holding both thoughts simultaneously. A landowner should not be deprived indefinitely of private property because the State failed to provide adequate housing policy. But poor Jamaicans should not carry the entire burden of decades of governmental failure either.
WHERE EXACTLY ARE POOR JAMAICANS SUPPOSED TO LIVE? This remains the question nobody seems eager to answer. Look at the price of land and, by extension, the price of houses. Look at rents relative to wages. Then consider the number of Jamaicans working in the informal economy or surviving on irregular incomes. How does a minimum-wage worker purchase a $20-million or $30-million house? How does a household earning modest wages qualify for a conventional mortgage while paying rent, transportation, electricity, food and school expenses? Even acquiring a small piece of land and constructing incrementally; the traditional Jamaican method of home ownership, has become increasingly difficult. So when we condemn squatting, we must complete the sentence.What realistic alternative are we offering?
THEN THERE IS THE NHT
This is where the National Housing Trust must enter the discussion. The NHT was created precisely because housing could not be left entirely to the private market. Jamaican workers have contributed to the Trust for decades. Yet home ownership remains beyond the reach of a substantial portion of those workers. That represents a fundamental policy failure. The measure of the NHT's success cannot simply be how financially strong the institution has become or how much money it has accumulated. The appropriate question is how many low-income Jamaicans who could never obtain conventional mortgages have been moved into secure, titled housing because the NHT exists?
If hundreds of thousands remain in informal settlements while the country's principal public housing institution possesses enormous financial resources, something is badly wrong with the equation.
TOURISM, GENTRIFICATION, AND THE NEW VALUE OF JAMAICAN LAND
There is another uncomfortable dimension to this debate. Jamaican land is becoming increasingly valuable, not necessarily because Jamaicans themselves are becoming wealthier, but because Jamaica is increasingly being marketed as an international commodity. Tourism development is expanding. Luxury villas are expanding. Condominium developments are expanding. Short-term rentals are expanding. Retirement and second-home markets are expanding. Land that poor Jamaicans once occupied because nobody particularly wanted it can suddenly become extraordinarily valuable. This is particularly significant along the coastline.
That brings us straight back to the concerns Hartley Neita was writing about decades ago. Who ultimately gets Jamaica? Who gets the beaches, the hillsides, the waterfront, who gets the desirable land? And where do the people who clean the hotels, cook the food, provide the security, drive the taxis, maintain the gardens and service the tourism economy actually live?
A country cannot develop sustainably by pricing its own working population out of shelter.
MR. HOLNESS SAYS THE PROBLEM CAN BE FIXED
This is perhaps the most encouraging part of the Prime Minister's recent intervention. Because if Mr. Holness believes the squatting problem is fixable, then let us hold him to that proposition. But fixing squatting cannot mean simply accelerating demolitions. It must mean accelerating regularisation. Where settlements occupy suitable government land and there are no serious environmental, infrastructure or ownership obstacles, give people a pathway toward legal tenure. Survey the land. Establish boundaries. Provide titles. Build roads and install water and sewage infrastructure. Create affordable financing mechanisms, where people genuinely cannot remain, develop relocation housing before demolition rather than after families have been rendered homeless. And dramatically expand serviced lots that allow working Jamaicans to build incrementally.
Jamaicans have demonstrated for generations that they can build their own homes. What many require is legal access to land, infrastructure and affordable financing.
BUT CLIENTELISM CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO HIJACK REGULARIZATION
And here comes the danger; the omnipresent clientelism that has dogged Jamaican politics for more than sixty years immediately returns to the front of the line. If regularization becomes another programme administered through political representatives, constituency networks and party activists, we will simply replace one problem with another. No Jamaican should receive title because he wears green. Or orange. No family should suddenly move to the front of a housing programme because somebody knows the councillor, caretaker or Member of Parliament. And no informal settlement should mysteriously become eligible for regularization because it sits inside a politically strategic constituency.
A national regularization programme must therefore operate according to transparent criteria administered through professional institutions rather than constituency patronage. Publish the criteria, as well as the communities being considered. Publish the number of lots, costs, the beneficiaries, allow independent audits, and establish an appeals mechanism. If this programme is genuinely intended to solve a national problem, then take partisan politics out of it.
STOP CREATING TOMORROW’S SQUATTER COMMUNITIES
Regularizing existing settlements addresses yesterday's problem but it does not prevent tomorrow's. Jamaica therefore needs a national affordable-land strategy running alongside regularization. Government and public agencies own land. The NHT has resources. Let us use them strategically. Develop serviced lots across Jamaica and sell or lease them to qualified low- and lower-middle-income families under long-term arrangements they can actually afford.
Imagine a programme where a working family obtains a small, serviced lot with secure tenure and access to approved expandable housing designs. Start with one bedroom and add another when income improves. Build the veranda and other rooms later. That is how generations of Jamaicans built homes. Government does not necessarily have to give people houses. Government can give people the tools with which to house themselves. That distinction could transform Jamaican housing policy.
WE CANNOT BULLDOZE OUR WAY OUT OF POVERTY
The Prime Minister is correct about one fundamental point: Jamaica cannot simply accept uncontrolled squatting indefinitely. It creates enormous problems involving infrastructure, sanitation, environmental degradation, public safety, planning and private property rights. But condemnation is not policy, and demolition is certainly not housing policy. Telling poor people that occupying land illegally is wrong without providing realistic pathways toward shelter solves absolutely nothing. We have been doing versions of that for more than a century.
From the post-Emancipation landless population, through the Dungle, Jamaica Beach, Trench Pen, Back-o-Wall and the redevelopment of West Kingston, through decades of tourism expansion and contested coastal access, and now to Cooper’s Pen, the underlying question has stubbornly survived.
WHERE ARE POOR JAMAICANS SUPPOSED TO LIVE?
In 2026, Jamaica should finally be capable of answering it. So, Mr Prime Minister, we already know squatting is wrong. We know landowners have rights, and we know Jamaica cannot permit uncontrolled occupation of private and public property. What we now need to hear is something considerably more difficult- What is the national plan to ensure that a Jamaican earning an ordinary Jamaican wage can legally acquire a piece of Jamaica on which to live?
If your proposed regularization programme can begin answering that question; transparently, nationally and without political clientelism, then it deserves support.
But if the policy amounts to regularizing some communities while bulldozing others, distributing titles through political networks, or clearing increasingly valuable land without creating affordable alternatives, then Jamaica will simply continue the cycle it has been repeating since Emancipation. The bulldozer can remove a house but it cannot solve the conditions that caused someone to build it there. Please follow me for more in-depth analysis of Jamaican public policy, social justice, governance, and national development
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