Discussion: Need to tighten management of social housing

Dong Nai is a large industrial center of Vietnam, so it attracts many workers from other provinces and cities to work. Accordingly, the demand for housing in industrially developed areas such as Bien Hoa city, Long Thanh district, Nhon Trach, Trang Bom... is very large, up to hundreds of thousands of units. More than 10 years ago, the province planned and encouraged businesses to invest in social housing projects to meet the needs of low-income workers. However, due to problems with mechanisms and policies, many social housing projects have been implemented slowly, leading to low supply and high demand. Many businesses are not "interested" in investing in social housing projects because of the many procedures and low profits compared to investing in commercial housing projects.

Báo Đồng Nai•11/05/2025

Because the supply of social housing is limited, every time a product is offered to the market, households in need must register to submit their applications and wait for approval. In many cases, even those who meet the prescribed conditions are still not sure to be able to buy or rent social housing. Especially in Bien Hoa city in the past 10 years, the number of completed social housing projects can be counted on the fingers, the supply of low-cost housing is always in a state of scarcity. There are many low-income households who only hope to buy or rent social housing to have a stable place to live and work with peace of mind, but that dream is still far away. Among them are civil servants, public employees, workers, armed forces... who after many years of waiting still have not been able to rent or buy social housing. However, recently, the Department of Construction inspected a number of social housing areas in Bien Hoa city and discovered that there were apartments being used for the wrong subjects. For example, the Binh Da Ward Social Housing Project and the Quang Vinh Ward 4 Social Housing Apartment Block Project were found to have apartments for foreigners to live in, and the apartments were left empty or used for the wrong purposes. These cases have caused many low-income households to lose the opportunity to access social housing.

According to Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Ho Van Ha, social housing is to support low-income people to have stable housing, work with peace of mind and stay in Dong Nai for a long time. Therefore, high-income people who are able to buy commercial housing should return it so that low-income households can have access to housing.

The province is reviewing and inspecting apartments in social housing projects in the area. If any tenants or purchasers are found to be violating regulations, they will be reclaimed to be allocated to families eligible for preferential policies on social housing. At the same time, the province will tighten the management and approval of records and purchasers of social housing to limit cases of taking advantage of policy loopholes for personal gain.

Recently, some social housing projects in Bien Hoa city have been selling apartments on social networks at prices 200-250 million VND higher than the state-regulated price when selling to eligible home buyers. There are also cases where social housing apartment owners, after no longer needing to live there for a period of time, have rented them out at prices 1.5-2 times higher than the state-regulated price. Therefore, many people hope that the province will increase inspections, promptly detect and strictly handle violations of social housing rental and hire-purchase.

Khanh Minh

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/kinh-te/202505/toa-dam-can-siet-chat-quan-ly-nha-o-xa-hoi-7c46813/