Shelter needs more than funds

Close coordination and partnership with all the stakeholders were necessary to ensure that communities being built through SHFC are sustainable.

SHFC officials Junefe Payot and Ann Margarette Vista believe all Filipinos should get the chance to own a house. DAVID JOHN CUBANGBANG@tribunephl_dvd

The success of mass housing schemes depends on strong partnerships between members of the informal and formal sectors, who are subjects of relocation and host local government units (LGU).

The government is pursuing projects to build sustainable government-funded communities, the state-owned Social Housing Finance Corp (SHFC), which is mandated to provide adequate community-based housing for part-borrowers regardless of their income level, said.

In an interview during Tuesday’s “Straight Talk with Daily Tribune,” lawyer Junefe Payot, SHFC executive vice president, stressed the agency’s housing projects are anchored on close partnerships — among SHFC, partner-borrowers, developers and LGU.

“We believe that housing is a right. So, everybody, regardless of income level, must ensure that everyone has access to housing, not just housing but adequate housing,” Payot told Daily Tribune.

He explained that since they relocate several families to another place, close coordination and partnership with all the stakeholders were necessary to ensure that communities being built through SHFC are sustainable.

Striking a very close partnership needs to involve all, particularly partner-borrowers, in every phase of the project — from planning and identifying relocation sites to the actual design of their structure.

“Our partnership is so strong because we look at the housing projects not just in terms of the structure per se but in a more holistic sense,” Payot explained.

“It should also result in the empowerment of the community. So, from the very start, we handhold them. We really have a very close handholding of the communities,” he stressed.

The SHFC official also pointed out that they don’t consider those who avail of their loans as clients or mere borrowers as but active partners.

“They’re borrowers, but we’d rather look at them as partners… as much as possible we try not to use the term, even beneficiaries, because for us they are really partners,” Payot said.

“Once we go into partnership with them, we help them, we assist them financially. So, they are not inactive beneficiaries but active partners of SHFC,” he added.

To ensure sustainability, the SHFC vice president said the partnership goes up to providing livelihood for the relocated informal settlers families (ISF) to ensure they will not return to their places of origin.

Payot cited a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies showing data about some government housing projects turning into slum areas again due to the absence of after-loan programs or the lack of basic services.

“At SHFC, even after they occupied their units or even after the loan is taken out, we make sure that the community is sustainable, that they have access to basic services,” he said.

“We also have livelihood programs wherein SHFC provides training and equipment to the relocated community for them to have income,” he added.

Among SHFC’s latest partner-borrowers were about 20,000 ISF displaced from the clearing operations of creeks and other waterways in Metro Manila.

The affected ISF were relocated to Bacoor City.

Payot said organization and initial engagements with some 12,000 ISF living along the south route of the Philippine National Railways (PNR) from Tutuban in Manila to Calamba, Laguna are also ongoing for their relocation.

The SHFC was tapped by the Department of Transportation to take care of the relocation of the ISF to be displaced by the multibillion PNR project.

So far, he said the SHFC already acquired an estate in Tanza, Cavite that can accommodate 3,000 ISF.

Payot said coordination with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is funding the Tutuban-Calamba section of the project, has started.

SHFC model horizontal homes have a 24-square meter floor area with provisions for loft and cost only P580,000. The loan is subject to only six percent annual interest payable up to 25 years.