ABSTRACT
In recent years Jamaican has probably done more than any other country in the English speaking Caribbean to define a poverty eradication strategy, identify priorities, and set up a detailed poverty monitoring scheme. In effect, HEART and PATH were almost the only government programmes that individuals felt were accessible, and the ethnography revealed a situation where the relationship between the population and the state remains highly attenuated. Most Jamaicans receive virtually no welfare benefits of any kind and thereby subsidize their own children's education, particularly after Grade 6. It is hardly surprising that the endless blocks of what seem to be 'minimal' and repetitive housing have attracted constant criticism from middle-class Jamaicans. The peace of mind of having control over the people they interact with as well as the security of keeping one's children safe from molestation, is perhaps the most important contribution of the low-income housing movement by the Jamaican government.
