BELVEDERE--St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation (SMHDF) is making an urgent appeal to government to allow the foundation to open its doors for a reduced number of hours each week. SMHDF says this is so that management and staff can carry out essential administrative and accounting tasks, as well as to assist tenants who wish to keep their monthly rental payments up to date.
SMHDF says it has “strictly followed” government’s instructions and closed the foundation’s office in Belvedere since March 18, when its staff were sent home until further notice. Now, SMHDF says it needs to get its personnel back to work and can no longer continue neglect its tenants.
The foundation said it has written to government requesting that the foundation be classified as an essential business.
“It has been a huge oversight on the part of government to classify us as a non-essential business, especially since we are the landlord of rented and leased properties of a very important section of the St. Maarten community,” said SMHDF Director Helen Salomons.
She said regular and emergency maintenance work has been put on hold until the lockdown is over.
She also said tenants had been informed that they should refer their housing, health and other issues not to SMHDF, but to the Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI and the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour VSA until further notice.
“Unfortunately, tenants continue to see SMHDF as the first point of contact as soon a problem arises and do not understand or accept any attempt to forward them to various government departments for help,” said Salomons.
She said that until government changes the foundation’s status and grants disaster passes to allow for emergency work “to be carried out without delay,” the foundation’s hands will remain tied.
Salomons says she is seeking approval from Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs to open SMHDF’s office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9:00am to 2:00pm for employees only, except for Fridays when the office can accept tenants to pay their rent between 9:00am and 12:00pm. This will be with “the observance of strict sanitising and social distancing protocols,” said Salomons.
“Government approval of the foundation’s request will go a long way towards meeting the needs of tenants, while allowing much-needed revenues from rent to come into the foundation’s coffers. It will also make it possible for staff to return to the office for limited work hours each week to catch up with a growing backlog of work,” she said.
