ON January 10, 1966, Victor Dell walked into the then National Housing Authority (NHA) to apply for a home. He was 33 years old at the time.

Dell was interested in purchasing a home at the newly-constructed Pleasantville Housing Estate in San Fernando. The cost of the homes was $11,000 at that time.

Dr Eric Williams was the country's prime minister.

Dell waited for more than a decade for his application to be approved but to no avail.

He wrote to then prime minister George Chambers to complain.

"I wrote to Chambers to complain about how long I had been looking for a house and I wanted to know the reason why I was not getting a house when I saw other people applying long after me and getting through," Dell said.

Dell received a letter from Chambers's secretary informing him that the matter was being investigated.

He started to rent a house in Dow Village, California, while he waited for his application to be approved.

He saw the rent gradually increase from $350 a month to $1,000 a month.

During this time, the National Housing Authority was renamed the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).

Dell still waited.

"I do not ever give up at anything, I always keep trying and I told myself 'one day'," Dell said.

The 'one day' Dell was looking forward to came to pass yesterday.

Seventy-eight-year-old Dell collected the keys to his own home from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday.

It took 45 years for Dell's application for a home to be approved.

Dell was among 134 people whose applications for housing have been in existence for more than 10 years receiving keys from the HDC yesterday.

The group had waited for housing for a combined total of 2,904 years, Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal said.

The presentation of keys ceremony by the HDC entitled "It's been a long time coming" took place at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom yesterday.

Dell was applauded by the packed audience inside the ballroom when he walked alongside his daughter Maria to collect the keys for their new home in Couva.

"My mind is at rest," Dell, armed with 45 years of paperwork, told the Express following the ceremony yesterday.

"God has blessed me, that is how I feel. I believe if the PNM was still there I might have been still waiting because is 45 years," Dell said.

Moonilal described Dell's 45-year-long wait as "a staggering piece of information" during his address at the key distribution ceremony yesterday.

"When I was born in San Fernando and as a baby I was at the San Fernando General Hospital a gentleman that is here journeyed to Port of Spain to apply for a house, and imagine if you will that someone goes today at South Quay at the HDC building applies for a home and you tell that person 'go to the Port of Spain General Hospital and look at a baby in the ward and when that baby becomes minister of housing you will get a house'," Moonilal said.

In the feature address at the ceremony yesterday, Persad-Bissessar said it was "totally unacceptable" that citizens would have to wait such a long time for a home.

Persad-Bissessar said housing for citizens should not be a "political option" used by governments.

HDC managing director, Jearlean John, advised the new home owners to pay their mortgage and be good neighbours.