By JADE RUSSELL AND LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporters

MINISTER of State for Social Services Myles Laroda said 18 rooms at the Poinciana Arena on Bernard Road have been leased to provide housing assistance to Bahamians displaced by shanty town demolitions.

The Unregulated Communities Action Task Force demolished the Kool Acres shanty town earlier this month.

Mr Laroda said only a few people are getting housing assistance right now.

“It’s not like you’re going to have this overflow of people who may have been in the shanty towns running there,” he said about the leased space. “There have been individuals who would have been there who are staying with family and didn’t ask for any assistance at all. So, the numbers are relatively small with regards to who is there.”

He said two rooms are currently occupied by people affected by the demolition.

This newspaper understands two rooms are currently being occupied by families affected by the shanty town demolition.

Some structures in the All Saints Way shanty town are expected to be demolished within the next two weeks, according to Luther Smith, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Works.

He said that the community has a mixture of regulated and unregulated structures.

Although Works and Family Island Affairs Minister Clay Sweeting previously said 162 structures in the Kool Acres and All Saints Way shanty towns would be demolished, Mr Smith suggested that the objectives for All Saints Way are not finalised.

He said on Friday that a decision on demolishing structures there will happen in the next two weeks.

“We’re not targeting that many homes, but there are structures there, which are clearly unregulated, and those have to come down,” he said.

“Further, they are on land which is either agricultural or Crown lands, and, therefore, they are on land that the owners do not have. So we have to then have a discussion with the persons responsible for lands as to what should happen to these persons.”

“We have begun to do a very careful review of the residents in All Saints Way, because some of them had building permits, and some indeed had had occupancy permits.

“So we do not expect to have a massive demolition exercise as has been carried out in Kool Acres because that area was clearly unregulated.

Mr Smith said following the review, the Ministry of Works will make a “determined policy decision” on whether the structures should be demolished.

“Those which we would be satisfied have been there legally, we will have to make a determined policy decision as to whether they should be coming down,” he said.

“Those structures that conform to the code, a policy decision would have to be made by the ministry as to whether they should, in fact, be demolished.”