Cayman’s flagship affordable housing programme may be unaffordable to the very people it was designed to help, according to an Auditor General’s report that found years of weak delivery and limited value for money from almost CI $68 million in public spending and tax concessions.

The 110-page audit puts numbers behind a housing crisis that has put homeownership beyond the financial reach of many working Caymanians and left more than 1,200 approved applicants waiting for government-supported homes.

It also sets a formidable benchmark for the NCFC Government, which is now implementing reforms to a housing system whose shortcomings identified by the audit largely predate its administration.

Perhaps the report’s most striking finding concerns the National Housing Development Trust (NHDT)’s new Affordable Housing Initiative.

A single applicant can earn no more than CI $4,500 a month to qualify. The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) estimates the mortgage on an AHI home at about CI $1,200 a month. Add approximately CI $1,000 for utilities, insurance and maintenance and total housing costs rise to CI $2,200.

That is 49% of the gross income of someone earning the maximum qualifying salary.

Government’s new housing policy, consistent with the international benchmark used by the OAG, defines housing as affordable when total housing costs do not exceed 30% of gross household income.

The auditors concluded that homeownership under the programme is “unaffordable for Caymanians who qualify using the global definition of affordability”.

The finding exposes a deeper problem than high private-market prices: even the subsidised solution can fail the affordability test for some of its intended beneficiaries.

Almost CI $68 million, limited delivery

Between 2019 and 2024, six government affordable-homeownership programmes and initiatives cost almost CI $68 million.

That comprised CI $41.5 million in direct programme expenditure and CI $26.5 million in foregone stamp-duty revenue. Construction accounted for CI $37.3 million of the direct costs, with CI $4.2 million spent on administration.

The CI $68 million was not simply the cost of building a handful of houses. It covered several programmes and included stamp-duty concessions on 1,539 property purchases.

But delivery remains striking when set against demand.

NHDT delivered 38 affordable homes across its programmes between 2019 and 2024, including two Build on Your Own Property projects. Another 50 homes were under construction at the end of 2024.

The Sister Islands Affordable Housing Development Corporation built no homes during those six years, despite having an annual target of three. Four were under construction by the end of 2025.

By February 2026, 1,194 approved applicants were on NHDT’s new AHI waiting list. Their average wait was 3.6 years; the longest-standing applicant had been waiting since April 2016.

Another 24 people were waiting for Sister Islands affordable housing, for an average 2.5 years.

The mismatch is stark: approved demand is measured in the thousands; delivery during the audit period was measured in dozens.

The average home versus the average wage

The private market presents an even more difficult equation.

Average Caymanian earnings were CI $4,968 a month in 2023. Applying the 30% benchmark gives an affordable housing budget of about CI $1,490 a month.

Average rent in 2024 was already CI $1,945, before utilities.

For homeownership, the OAG modelled a CI $500,000 property with a 10% deposit. At 2024 borrowing rates, the estimated mortgage payment was CI $3,863 a month.

Once estimated utilities, insurance, maintenance and repairs are included, the monthly cost reaches CI $4,996 - 101% of the average Caymanian’s gross income.

That would leave “insufficient resources for other essential needs such as food, healthcare and education”, the auditors said.

The pressures reflect a market transformed over a relatively short period. Between 2019 and 2024, Cayman’s population grew 27%. Property prices rose sharply and average rents increased 42%. Meanwhile, the proportion of households renting rose from 48% to 52%, making renters the majority.

A priority without a strategy

The audit’s most consequential criticism may be less visible than the house prices.

Affordable housing had been a stated Government priority since at least 2018, yet the OAG found that during 2019 to 2024 there was no overarching strategy, formal housing-needs assessment, government-wide performance framework or lead body with clear responsibility for housing outcomes.

Government did not formally define affordable housing until December 2025.

Across four Strategic Policy Statements covering 2018 to 2026, the auditors also found no measurable targets against which housing commitments could be assessed.

That finding gives added weight to an argument the Opposition was making before the report appeared.

Responding to the NCFC Government’s first-year progress report in May, the Opposition said: “Caymanians ultimately measure Government performance against the realities they face every day.”

It argued that merely producing a housing policy and 10-year strategic plan did not amount to delivering homes, adding that Caymanians wanted to know how many affordable homes would be delivered, when and at what cost.

The statement concluded that the focus should shift “from rhetoric and groundwork to implementation, measurable progress and tangible results for Caymanian families across all three islands”. The comments were made on 22 May, more than three months before publication of the OAG report.

The similarity between that argument and the Auditor General’s subsequent criticism is politically useful to the Opposition. But the dates make the picture more complicated.

The audit principally covers 2019 to 2024, before NCFC took office. Its findings therefore span earlier governments and cannot accurately be presented as an assessment solely of the current administration.

That means the report cuts politically in both directions.

The Opposition can challenge NCFC over how quickly it delivers from here. But the OAG’s findings also invite scrutiny of governments and office-holders responsible during the audit period over how a longstanding priority reached the end of 2024 without an overarching strategy, formal needs assessment or meaningful performance framework.

NCFC’s defence: the system has changed

The current Government has a substantial answer to that criticism: many of the deficiencies identified by the audit are now being addressed.

Cabinet approved Cayman’s first Public and Affordable Housing Policy in December 2025, followed by its 10-Year Strategic Plan. The work involved more than 1,000 residents and 120 key stakeholders and identified an estimated undersupply of approximately 3,000 housing units.

The plan contains 98 recommendations across 10 policy areas and places the Ministry of Planning, Lands, Agriculture, Housing & Infrastructure in the lead coordinating role.

Crucially, the Auditor General describes the new framework as a “significant step forward”.

Deputy Governor and Head of the Civil Service Gloria McField-Nixon acknowledged in Government’s response to the audit that “more remains to be done”.

“Our focus now is on implementation, accountability and ensuring that the reforms already underway translate into better housing outcomes for current and future generations,” she said.

Eric Bush, chief officer in the housing ministry, put the Government’s own test more plainly.

“We recognise that the measure of this Plan will ultimately be in what it delivers for the Caymanian people,” Bush said.

He said Government could not achieve the required scale of change alone and pointed to the private sector as having an “equally important role” in increasing housing supply and expanding opportunities for Caymanians to own or rent homes they can afford.

That emphasis on measurable delivery is significant because it is precisely where the OAG says the new framework remains vulnerable.

The plan contains 14 strategic objectives, but the auditors found no performance measures for them, no numerical targets, no specified measure owners, no identified data sources and no collection frequencies.

“Without such targets,” the OAG said, “it will remain difficult to determine whether the framework is achieving its intended outcomes.”

Housing Minister Jay Ebanks MP made a similarly relevant observation four days before the audit was published.

“Housing reform is not achieved through one Bill, one policy or one programme,” Ebanks said on 27 August as his ministry announced proposed amendments to the Development and Planning Act.

“It requires the right tools, the right systems and the discipline to deliver in the proper sequence.”

He later added: “Our responsibility is to build a housing framework that works not only on paper, but in practice.”

Those comments were not made in response to the Auditor General.

But the audit gives them greater significance.

The OAG accepts that Cayman now has a comprehensive housing strategy where previously there was none. Its warning is that a strategy and proof that the strategy works are not the same thing.

A nation of renters, without modern protections

Homeownership is only part of the problem.

By 2024, 19,927 properties (52% of households) were rented, compared with 48% in 2019. Average rents had climbed 42% to $1,945.

Yet the OAG found no government oversight of the rental market, no minimum housing standards and no inspection regime providing assurance that rental accommodation is adequate and safe.

The existing Landlord and Tenants Act was last updated in 1998 and, according to the auditors, “heavily favours landlords”.

Parliament approved a replacement Residential Tenancies Act in 2009, intended to modernise tenant protections and introduce habitability standards.

Seventeen years later, it has never been brought into force.

Government has since begun consultation on amendments to residential tenancy legislation. Its wider housing strategy proposes modern tenancy protections, minimum housing standards and an inspection system. The OAG says bringing modern residential-tenancy legislation into force should be prioritised.

The issue is increasingly expensive for the public purse as well as tenants.

Between 2019 and 2024, Government spent CI $23.5 million on rental assistance, supporting between 429 and 611 Caymanians annually. Average assistance per recipient or household rose 48%, from CI $5,858 to CI $8,671.

The scoreboard

The report does not establish that NCFC’s new housing strategy has failed. It is too early to reach that conclusion, and most of the audit examines the system that preceded the current Government.

Nor does it say $68 million was simply wasted. The figure encompasses different programmes, construction expenditure and stamp-duty concessions, some of which provided demonstrable benefits.

What the audit establishes is the baseline against which the new Government’s promises can now be measured.

For six years in which affordable housing was repeatedly declared a priority, delivery remained limited. Government lacked a comprehensive strategy and measurable targets. Waiting lists stretched into years. Rents surged. And a government-backed “affordable” home can, on the OAG’s calculation, consume almost half the maximum income of a qualifying single applicant.

NCFC can reasonably argue that many of those shortcomings predate its administration and that it has now produced the policy framework intended to address them.

But its own officials have also established the standard by which that response should be judged.

A housing framework that works “not only on paper, but in practice,” the Housing Minister has said.

A plan measured by what it “delivers for the Caymanian people,” according to his chief officer.

The Government now has its plan.

The Auditor General has given Cayman the scoreboard.