WHILE lauding government’s intention to provide additional housing opportunities through its high-rise urban housing project, Hamilton Lashley, advisor on social policy, is hoping that single men would have an equal chance at landing one of the units.
“I know fathers who have three or four children that can’t get a house,” Lashley said. “If you are talking about a gender neutral society, where equilibrium, equality and equity are the key, then men should be afforded the same justice, principle and systems in this country.”
In an interview with the DAILY?NATION yesterday, he also said men were seriously disadvantaged “in the justice system”.
“You have fathers out there who are marginalized. And what you find is that some fathers are put on the back burner when it comes to housing.”
But Yvonnes Walkes, president of National Organisation of Women (NOW), responding to Lashley’s comments, said she did not think it was a case of men being “unfaired”, but that women produced evidence to prove a greater need for housing.
“Unless a man was going with that evidence that he has to find space for his family – whether it is a common-law or traditional marriage situation – I would assume that there should not be any discrimination . . . if he has the evidence that he is a single parent, he needs to have provision for his family.”
She said women have “had these dual roles to carry out which seems to people that they are having more than their equal share. But you have to look at the complexity of the matter and then see where the burden lies. One of the things that I heard – I don’t know if its anecdotal – is that men are shy to go forward with their needs.”
Lashley was making his point against the background of what he said was “a major problem in Barbados”.
“There are three major problems in Barbados: housing, housing, and housing. If we follow the concept of high-rise building, it provides an instant solution, if not you are going to develop a lot of ghetto-type style buildings on the land in Barbados.
“London Bourne (a high-rise project at Bay Street, St Michael) has not posed any serious (social) threat. In fact, the way it has been done by National Housing Corporation, is that they have enhanced the lives of the residents that live there,” he said.
