58 December 2015 - Business View Caribbean
meet code and we will provide a one-year warranty.
We’ll sell a unit to residents who can qualify for a mort-
gage, for between 22 and 27 thousand dollars - which
is a bargain anywhere on the planet.”
Looking ahead, Graham lays out VIHA’s long-term
goals: “We would like to build 1,000 new, affordable
housing apartments in the next eight to ten years.
That’s 75 – 100 units, on average, a year,” he says.
And then he enumerates the main objectives outlined
in the agency’s five-year plan: “To provide homeless
and emergency housing; increase independent, se-
nior housing; create housing opportunities for young
professionals; encourage home ownership; right-size
public housing portfolio; incorporate sustainable and
resilient affordable housing development strategies
(putting in solar panels, putting in cisterns, reducing
our cost of utilities for the new developments); and
utilizing the White House’s Choice Neighborhoods Ini-
tiative model.” (The Choice Neighborhoods program
supports locally driven strategies to address struggling
neighborhoods with distressed public or HUD-assisted
housing through a comprehensive approach to neigh-
borhood transformation. The program is designed to
catalyze critical improvements in neighborhood as-
sets, including vacant property, housing, services and
schools.)
Graham stresses that VIHA is “sound, both financially
and operationally, effective and efficient in terms of
