Caribbean countries have made great strides in the housing sector and have experimented with new models of social housing policy. Governments have pursued new programs to encourage private sector involvement and investment in social housing through a number of incentives, including revolving low-income housing funds for the construction of new housing units and granting blocks of land to private developers to build social housing. In addition, many Caribbean countries have adopted the concept of incremental housing and have developed programs to respond to the qualitative as well as the quantitative housing deficit. The valuable information collected in this report has offered guidance in creating, implementing, and monitoring future social housing policies.

The housing policies reviewed in this policy paper illustrate that social housing challenges cannot be addressed in isolation. This report strongly encourages governments at all levels to integrate housing policies with broader policies in urban planning, including population, environmental, land, and infrastructure policies. At the neighborhood level, these efforts can materialize in comprehensive multi-sector slum upgrading programs that include attention to social housing, disaster risk reduction, public space, citizen security, infrastructure, land tenure, and educational facilities (Jaitman and Brakarz, 2013). As Caribbean countries design the “New Urban Agenda,” it is essential that social housing remains at the core of these efforts.