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Calvin G. Brown News

JAMAICA | Fifty Years On, Michael Manley's NHT Dream has been turned Into a Government ATM

A half-century after Michael Manley built the National Housing Trust as a fortress of social justice, Jamaica's government has reduced it to a piggy bank — and Budget Day 2026 proves nothing has changed.

Calvin G. Brown 

When Michael Manley stood before the Jamaican Parliament in 1976 and championed the creation of the National Housing Trust, he was doing something radical.

He was telling Jamaica's working poor — the cane-cutters and schoolteachers, the market vendors and hotel maids — that their weekly contributions would build them a home. Not a favour. Not charity. A right.

Calvin G. Brown News
Opposition Leader Mark Golding delivering his budget speech on Tuesday
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