Twenty-nine-year-old, Kadeisha Page, struck land gold when she was selected as one of 106 selected applicants to receive a Serviced Lot at the National Housing Trust’s (NHT) Friendship Oaks Housing Development in St Elizabeth.
The Mount Saint Joseph’s Catholic High Art Teacher expresses that it was her first time applying for an NHT housing solution and was, to say the least, ‘very excited’ to be successful.
“It was one of my goals for my five-year plan, which I started in about 2022/2023. So when I got the call that I was selected for one of the lots, I was very excited,” the St Elizabeth native said.
Page noted that she started her NHT contributions during university, as she had teaching opportunities there, and felt it was important to begin the process early.
“I worked at my college (Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts) for summer school, so I started contributing when I was 19 or 20 years old,” she said.
Kadeisha always dreamt of owning her own home, and therefore kept up to date with the NHT social media pages and website to see what was available for purchase. She admits that she had no real thought on whether or not she wanted to reside in the parish of her birth, but made the decision to purchase as it was “too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
Ms. Page expressed that she gave much thought to whether she should build her own home versus buying one. She stated that building her own house gave her an opportunity to properly manage her salary spend.
“You get to dictate how much exactly comes out of your salary based on what you are building. So (through building) I get to leverage my salary to do what I can afford to do,” she said.
Kadeisha noted that her awareness of the building process made her realise how much easier the NHT makes the process for its contributors.
“Going through NHT made the process of buying the land 100% easier. I didn’t have to go through finding lawyers, deposit, or doing any evaluation. Those things can be time consuming and draining financially as well. So, NHT made it easier,” she said.
While Page does not have any thoughts about her dream home just yet, she said, her design style is minimalistic, so the structure will be simple, secure with high ceilings.
The 36.8 hectares of land is located in Goshen, approximately 11.5 km southeast of Santa Cruz. The National Housing Trust continues to have a strong presence within the parish, with projects like Gazeland Meadows, Phoenix Park, Lower Works and Santa Cruz housing developments. The organisation has plans to develop another seven schemes in the next six years, which will bring over 4100 housing solutions to the market.