Business View Caribbean - December 2015 55
mand for public housing assistance - the waiting list
for housing is about 800; the waiting list for vouchers
is about 2,000 - while concurrently maintaining its ag-
ing housing stock and building new developments – all
within its budgetary constraints. “Most of our develop-
ments are 50 or 60 years old,” says Graham. “And our
physical needs assessment for those 3000 plus units
is over $200 million. We receive approximately $5
million in capital funding each year. So, it’s not much
money to repair everything at one time.”
Graham explains that one way for the agency to meet
its challenge is to “right-size” its housing inventory.
Currently, VIHA has approximately 800 vacant units,
so it is acting to remove between five and six hundred
of them; 325 units in two different projects are pres-
ently being demolished, and another several hundred
are awaiting HUD approval for their demolition. “We’re
right-sizing the public housing inventory by taking out
