Social housing, resettlement:
How to solve the problem: Surplus places - Shortage of people?
While the supply of social housing in Ho Chi Minh City is lacking and people are struggling to find a place to live, in resettlement areas, thousands of apartments have been abandoned and seriously degraded for many years.
"It's dark here around 5pm, it looks scary"
Every day, when carrying her cart of fried rice cakes to the corner of the street near the Binh Khanh resettlement area, Ms. Nguyen Quynh Trang (38 years old, from Vinh Long ) has to wait until the end of work, when the students of An Khanh Primary School have left, before customers come to buy them.
"I do small business so I only dare to look at those buildings, but I don't dare to dream about them, because I don't have enough money to buy them and I don't think it's suitable for my living habits. No one lives here so they can't turn on the lights at night, so at around 5pm I rush home because it's dark and scary," Trang said, feeling regretful as she stood looking at thousands of abandoned apartments.
Binh Khanh resettlement area becomes more desolate and gloomy after a series of days of being used as a Covid-19 field hospital.
The project that Ms. Trang mentioned is Binh Khanh resettlement area (Thu Thiem New Urban Area, Thu Duc City). Once one of the largest resettlement projects in Ho Chi Minh City, with a prime location on Mai Chi Tho and Luong Dinh Cua streets, completed in 2015, but to date, thousands of apartments here are still uninhabited.
Although fully equipped with modern facilities, including other items such as schools, swimming pools, parks, etc., due to long-term absence, the quality of the infrastructure has gradually degraded. The entrance to the apartment is fenced off, each block has 1-2 security guards to watch over to prevent people from entering without permission.
Similarly, at the Vinh Loc B resettlement area (Binh Chanh district, Ho Chi Minh City), many apartment blocks intended to resettle households whose land was cleared in projects in the city are also in a state of "closed doors and locked locks".
Once owning a street-front house and a very popular pho shop in District 11, after the land clearance, Mr. Lu Quoc Hung's family was forced to reluctantly move to the Vinh Loc B resettlement area with the city's support.
Mr. Hung informed that in the past, people in the area opened many shops, but because of the sparse population, business was unstable, leading to losses and closure of shops. There were even cases where people had to sell their houses to go elsewhere to do business.
"Business at my old place was going well, but since I came here I can't continue doing business anymore. It's not that I'm lazy, nor that I don't have enough money to open a shop, but because there are very few people living in this area, I can run around with my eyes closed and not bump into anyone," said the man originally from Saigon.
The reason Mr. Hung chose to buy an apartment here was because at that time he did not have much money and had to save money to raise his two children. If he used all the compensation money to buy a house elsewhere, it would not be enough to continue to cover his living expenses during the upcoming months of unemployment.
Because the area does not have many development opportunities, even though it has been 12 years since moving to the new house, Mr. Hung and his wife are still unemployed, living only on the bank interest earned when they received compensation for the old house.
Like Ms. Trang, Ms. Thu Dieu (a resident and owner of a coffee shop operating in the Vinh Loc B resettlement area) can only rely on income from the group of young customers from the nearby school. Because the area is not protected by security, and because of her old age and difficulty in finding a job, Ms. Dieu had to open a sidewalk coffee shop to both do business and look after her house.
"Young people like to live in the central area, near many companies. But here it is too far and there is no work, so gradually everyone moves elsewhere, some people rent it out," said Ms. Dieu, adding that this area is more suitable for older people who are financially stable and like a quiet space.
Construction of resettlement projects must ensure social security values.
Sharing with Dan Tri , Mr. Nguyen Duc Lap - Director of the Institute of Real Estate Research and Training - commented that when approving investment policies, the government and businesses both aim for certain goals. The first will be the users and customers of the project. In this case, resettlement projects all have the same goal of accommodating affected households during the process of site clearance for projects in each local area.
"During the survey and feasibility study report preparation process, the responsible units need to calculate and accurately collect data on the needs and wishes of the displaced people and clearly define the resettlement policy, clearly plan the progress of the resettlement and clearance before construction. However, if there is an error in the above calculation, there will be a situation where many apartments are unoccupied as it is now," the Director of the Institute of Real Estate Research and Training emphasized the reason why thousands of apartments are "dead" after decades of construction.
A resettlement project in a "shelved" state in Hanoi (Photo: Ha Phong).
In addition, resettlement is not only about providing housing for people but also about recreating living space for residents with a better standard of living. Resettlement apartments must have a value that is equivalent or higher, but cheaper than the old place of residence. Ensuring that the lifestyle of the displaced people is suitable, solving the problem of livelihood and employment for the people is also one of the factors that need attention. When these are not satisfied, it will be very difficult to attract residents.
Miscalculation of indicators when implementing projects in general, and resettlement projects in particular, will in the long run cause waste of State resources. The biggest loss is when resettlement housing does not attract residents, causing bottlenecks in site clearance for projects, causing delays in project implementation. These construction works also decrease in value and quality over time and deteriorate rapidly when not put into use. From there, the State spends more on maintenance and repair costs.
"To limit this situation, the implementation of resettlement projects needs to ensure the calculation and harmonious synthesis of social security values, not just housing," said Mr. Lap.
On the government side, these units also need to develop policies to ensure that people benefit more when resettled and explain clearly to people to attract people to hand over land and move to new places of residence.
For existing projects, it is necessary to count, delimit, and re-evaluate the needs of resettled households to accurately determine the apartment fund to be reclaimed for resettlement. For the remaining apartments, consider converting them into commercial apartments, and conduct auctions to recover the budget to reallocate to other resettlement projects, more suitable for the people being cleared.
Expanding the apartment rental model is also one of the best solutions for workers in Ho Chi Minh City, people with limited budgets, who often have to change their working environment to meet their needs. According to Dr. Dinh The Hien - economic expert, this model is currently being developed in many countries around the world.
"With this solution, investors can build apartments for rent, fully equipped with utilities and infrastructure, and implement flexible rentals at reasonable prices. They can combine rent-purchase, meaning that people will be rented to live as agreed. However, when they have rented long-term, reaching a certain number of years, they will support the purchase (if needed) and the purchase amount will be deducted from the previous rental amount," said Mr. Hien, adding that such solutions will be more suitable and accessible to workers, compared to trying to build a lot of social housing but not meeting quality requirements.
Content: Mai An
06/03/2023
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