WHOLISTIC HOUSING APPROACH

WHOLISTIC HOUSING APPROACH My dear countrymen, the housing backlog is estimated to be about 6.5 million units. Based on best estimates, it is projected that the government will be able to build about 1.5 million units on or before the end of 2028, which means that there would still be about 5.0 million families that will remain homeless by then. Our choice therefore is obvious. Either we leave the shortage and just let the homeless people suffer, or we come up with a doable solution that would at least lessen the backlog. I am neither an engineer nor a builder, but the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity of learning from two of the top housing czars of our time, Jose Conrado “Joly” Benitez and Jejomar “Jojo” Cabauatan Binay, Sr., both fondly called “JCB”. Perhaps it would be too much to brag that they were my mentors, but I could rightfully claim that I was their student or mentee, so to speak. Joly was Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS), and Jojo was the Chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), concurrent to being Vice President. A few months before he died, Deputy Minister Benitez invited me to dinner, just the two of us. He said that he has been reading my columns, and that he wanted to share some of his ideas with me, suggesting perhaps that I could write about them too. And so he told me his ideas about reforesting the barren mountains, building high speed trains from Luzon to Mindanao, and constructing more public housing. Talking about the latter, he said that his leasing program during his time was a form of “rent-to-own”. During one of our “kitchen cabinet” meetings, Vice President Binay said that housing is not a technical problem, meaning that it is a financing problem. To make his point clear, he said that anyone could afford to buy a Mercedes-Benz, if he or she is given the right long term payment terms for it, at monthly rates that he or she could afford. He then talked about the housing financing terms of Hong Kong and Singapore, wherein lease payments are so low that even the poor people could afford it. Binay added that the lease agreements could even be passed on and be taken over by the succeeding generations, and that is why these are so affordable. In New York City (NYC), the public housing projects are owned an operated by the city. The residents, who are from low-income and middle-income families, pay affordable rent and they could stay as long as they make good on their rental payments, but they could not own the units. And because the transportation system in the city is very efficient, the residents could easily go to their places of work or business. I think that the NYC model is best for us, with some modifications, and incorporating the best of the Benitez and Binay approaches. What do I mean by that? Firstly, the rent must be very affordable. Secondly, there should be a transportation system that that would make it easy for residents to go to their places of work or business, and of course, also make it easy for students to go to school. And these housing units should have complete services and utilities such as water, power, sewerage and internet. To make that happen, there should be complete cooperation among all government agencies concerned, hence the need for a wholistic approach. Your friend, IKE SENERES/12-05-24/visit my blog senseneres.blogspot.com