HCM City faces social housing shortage

HCM CITY — HCM City has a surplus of houses for relocated residents, but severely lacks social housing.

Trần Vĩnh Tuyến, vice chairman of the city’s People’s Committee, said the city has a surplus of 7,000 houses in urban areas and resettlement areas in districts 2, 7 and Bình Chánh for people who need to be relocated.  

The city is planning to put them up for auction and use the money for purposes such as infrastructure investment.

Many resettlement apartments in the city have been left unused for many reasons.

Some of the apartments are in poor condition. People who were relocated cannot find jobs in the new areas, and some people preferred to take compensation over being moved to a resettlement apartment.

From 2011 to 2020, it is estimated that around 134,000 social apartments would be needed, according to the Department of Construction.

About 81,000 households and individuals (between 2016 and 2020) were estimated to be in need of social housing, according to the HCM City Institute for Development.

The department said the city has built nearly 8,000 social housing apartments, and 11 buildings are under construction, which are expected to provide almost 10,200 apartments.

Several social housing projects such as Hoàng Quân Project are lagging behind schedule and cannot deliver the apartments on time to customers who have bought them.

In late 2018, the city approved a decision to dedicate more than 60,000sq.m of land at several districts to build social housing. The construction department is asking for permission to put them up for auction to attract investors.

However, many real estate businesses said they were not interested in social housing, as 20 per cent of the apartments for rent and 60 per cent for sale must have their prices approved by the State, and investors can only freely operate the remaining 20 per cent.

The expected profit rate of a project would be no more than 10 per cent.

The department has suggested that the city ask the Government to arrange low-interest loans from the Việt Nam Bank for Social Policies for investors and apartment buyers. — VNS