I read an article in the paper the other day. Home owners in Portmore were complaining that their (much poorer) neighbors were devaluing their properties by building cheap board houses beside their more expensive concrete homes.
Now, in all fairness when the complainants first bought their lots the lot beside them was empty and 
maybe bushed up. The government had to relocate some poor residents however and sold the lot beside them to these poor folks. After probably begging and scraping together to purchase the land the persons were now broke and could not afford to actually build a house on the lot. They turned to The Food For The Poor who helped them by donating some one bedroom board structures so that they would at least have a roof over their heads while they saved.
I could make a point here that many houses in the US are made of board like material and board houses can be made into magnificent architectural creations. So if we go to the US and are comfortable buying board houses and sleeping in them, why cannot we give our own neighbors a chance to “move up in life'”. In fact there are more board houses in Jamaica then concrete, and most persons moving from rural Jamaica probably lived in a board house or has a relative who live in a board houses. Why the high horsed approach?
We would think that some persons would be happy for those poor persons who got a boost in life. They have now moved up to be land owners, and though their houses are not made of the more formal concrete they now have a roof over their heads. How less ‘accommodating’ can we be if we should now insist that the government move these people or insist that they upgrade their houses so as to “fit” into the “scheme” of things.
Do not not think that the same way the more affluent are caught up by the poor man’s blight, the poor must be looking over their walls and aspiring to have a “house like that some day”. if indeed they are not, and have no ambition, then there is little we can do to force “ambition” down their throats. They are landowners and have a right, once approval is given to have a roof, however ‘shingled” it may be.
My truth..what say you?