Polack Post: Caribbean Disaster – Poor Jamaica
By Peter Polack
Peter Polack
Jamaica has had a difficult week with the unexpected loss of their national football team to a smaller island, their Miss Universe entrant falling off the stage in Thailand and last but not least, their government suggestion that thousands of low income families are to be confined to metal boxes or containers.
Shooting from the hip can cause injury to your foot.
Jamaicans are renown for running a food boat on Saturdays at their house building site, helped by family, neighbors and friends, often more trustworthy than those who control the national purses. This money saving activity, frequently to bring a house to the belting, mostly uses locally produced materials and building blocks. In return, those assisted, go on to help others in the group.
A little like informal partner money clubs, it can be more available or safer or helpful than banks, given in part to the low or non- existent deposit insurance available in some Caribbean islands.
Better still, it gives control back to the needy people, using locally products that should be of reasonable cost, given the instant situation, distributed directly to damaged homeowners to lessen the chance of the interruption of endemic corruption.
Perhaps the homeowners can be given a choice, materials or metal box.
There is some variation among the immediate numbers, invariably underestimated given families preference to damaged home over shelter, from 1,400 to 25,000. What has to be, has to be, and other plans will have to be shelved or budgets shaved. Home is where the heart is.
They are not alone.
By one estimate, the Cayman Islands is in need of 2,200 low income homes with few plans in a recent multi billion budget to sincerely address the problem, much to the frustration of the responsible minister. Like many in the Caribbean, homes for the many has been kicked down the road for decades.
There are also the scandals, the most recent being almost US$200,000 of new housing plumbing fixtures being discarded for use as animal troughs due to schoolboy errors.
These homes will be the legacy for many island families who deserve the dignity of proper housing even if politicians have to reduce their just risen, and often embarrassingly large salaries.
Help them to help themselves. Now.
Notes
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/world/americas/hurricane-melissa-homeless-jamaica.html
https://jamaica-star.com/article/news/20251029/more-25000-people-hurricane-shelters
https://caymanmarlroad.com/2025/10/22/over-2200-caymanians-awaiting-affordable-housing
https://www.caymancompass.com/2025/11/17/new-affordable-housing-blueprint-on-the-way
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
