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“[…] I stand here not just for myself, but for every young professional drowning in rent, every couple delaying marriage because they can’t afford a place to live, every parent lying awake wondering if their child will ever own a home.
“Trinidad and Tobago is in a housing crisis: 77% of our workforce earns less than $6,000 a month (CSO, 2018); the salary range for most workers is $3,553.33 to $15,959.51 but even at the highest end, you cannot afford a $1.2 million home with interest rates at 6-9%.
“Subsidized housing exists, but with waiting lists longer than a decade, while private developers build homes the average citizen will never be able to afford…”
(via AZC.)
The following Letter to the Editor on the need for ‘affordable housing’ in Trinidad and Tobago was submitted to Wired868 by Joel Quamina:
“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
These words from Matthew weigh heavy on my heart today not as a promise, but as a painful question: How long must we ask? How hard must we knock before the door to a decent home finally opens?
(via HDC.)
I stand here not just for myself, but for every young professional drowning in rent, every couple delaying marriage because they can’t afford a place to live, every parent lying awake wondering if their child will ever own a home.
Trinidad and Tobago is in a housing crisis: 77% of our workforce earns less than $6,000 a month (CSO, 2018); the salary range for most workers is $3,553.33 to $15,959.51 but even at the highest end, you cannot afford a $1.2 million home with interest rates at 6-9%.
Subsidized housing exists, but with waiting lists longer than a decade, while private developers build homes the average citizen will never be able to afford.
But the real damage is measured in postponed marriages (average age now 32 vs 26 in 1990) and declining birth rates as couples wait for stability and young adults living in multi-generational households—not by choice, but necessity.
This isn’t just about numbers, it’s about broken promises. Our parents sacrificed for our education, believing it would lead to stability. But what good is a degree if you’re paying 60% of your salary in rent? What good is hard work if homeownership stays a fantasy?
While I applaud the government for its grants, subsidies and land distribution, these are drops in an ocean of need—band-aids, not cures. Meanwhile, rents skyrocket while wages stagnate.
Developers chase luxury profits, ignoring working families and young professionals emigrate not for opportunity, but because they can’t afford to live here.
We cannot rely on goodwill alone. We need structural change and it’s time for policies that match the scale of this crisis.
This includes price caps so no family pays half their income just to keep a roof overhead, affordable housing mandates requiring developers to set aside a percentage of units at regulated prices, and establishing a National Housing Commission—not another slow-moving agency but a watchdog with grit to monitor pricing, punish price-gouging and publish annual Affordability Reports.
This isn’t about handouts, it’s about fairness. Our parents built this country and our graduates fuel its future. The youth deserve a stake in it.
To the leaders listening, I am not asking for charity. I am demanding justice for every young adult, graduate, and hardworking citizen who has played by the rules, only to find the dream of homeownership slipping further away with each passing year.
This is not just about houses, it’s about dignity, stability and the future of our nation. The solutions exist. The question isn’t if we can solve this, it’s whether we have the courage to try.
So let’s begin.
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Please keep your letter between 300 to 600 words and be sure to read it over first for typos and punctuation.
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To rebut the argument that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago owes every citizen a pathway to home ownership and must intervene in the housing market beyond targeted assistance for the most vulnerable.
“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
Mr Joel Marvin Quamina opens his letter with this verse, but in doing so, misinterprets aspiration as entitlement. The fundamental error running through his letter is the assumption that home ownership is a right the Government must guarantee. It is not. In no common law jurisdiction—including Trinidad and Tobago—is there a legal, constitutional, or economic principle that mandates home ownership as a public entitlement. Shelter, yes—for the destitute and vulnerable. But home ownership is a matter of market participation, personal finance, and individual choice.
Housing is Not a Moral Transaction—It’s a Market One
Mr Quamina laments that even high-end salaried workers cannot afford $1.2 million homes. But affordability is a function of supply and demand, wage levels, lending practices, and interest rates—all of which are shaped by global markets, not local government fiat. The idea that developers are “ignoring” working families is disingenuous. Developers are private actors responding to demand, risk, and profitability. To expect otherwise is to confuse private enterprise with social service.
It is also economically illiterate to suggest that developers should be compelled to sell units below market value simply because prospective buyers cannot afford them. Mandated price caps and affordability quotas, as suggested, do not increase supply—they suppress it. Countries that have tried this, including New York and Berlin, have seen housing shortages worsen, with investors fleeing the residential construction sector altogether.
Government’s Role: Provide Safety Nets, Not Subsidise the Middle Class
The State does indeed have a duty to prevent homelessness—but Trinidad and Tobago does not even have a legal definition of homelessness, nor a homelessness strategy. The public housing waitlist is long not because the Government is failing, but because demand far exceeds public sector capacity.
The solution is not to divert resources to middle-income earners who already have jobs and mobility, but to build targeted safety nets for those in genuine housing need: victims of domestic violence, families in slums, and the mentally ill. That is what public policy must prioritise.
Mr Quamina’s call for a National Housing Commission with punitive powers to monitor pricing and “punish price-gouging” is not only legally unsound but economically dangerous. A watchdog cannot create affordable homes—it can only create bureaucratic drag. Housing solutions must come from enabling policies, not enforced morality.
Correlation is Not Causation
The letter links delayed marriage, declining birth rates, and multigenerational living to unaffordable housing. But these are global demographic trends seen in countries with very different housing markets. People delay marriage and children for myriad reasons: education, career aspirations, and changing values. Multigenerational homes are also a cultural norm in many societies and are not inherently negative.
To attribute all social change to housing prices is not just speculative—it’s false causation.
A Fairer Perspective
Fairness is not giving everyone the same square footage. Fairness is protecting the vulnerable while allowing the economy to function. Governments do not and should not promise home ownership to all. Instead, their duty is to facilitate economic growth, ensure fair mortgage lending, reduce corruption in land allocation, and reserve subsidies for those in true hardship.
Mr Quamina’s letter is well-intentioned but ultimately a romantic lament unanchored from economic reality. Home ownership is earned, not legislated. And while equity and compassion must guide housing policy, they cannot replace the laws of supply and demand.
Let us demand honesty—not sentiment—in public debate.