From her third-floor flat, Mrs. Elvie Pablo, a mother of four children, pinpoints an extensive slum of shanties. This eyesore is the Philippine National Railways or the PNR.
According to Mrs. Pablo,”That is where we used to live”. The excessive crowding was awful, and several quarrels occur among the neighbourhood. The place was not clean, and children there often get sick.
Several weeks ago, Pablo family was provided with keys to a housing unit located in a mid-rise municipal housing project structured for squatters and residents with low-income in Taguig City, Manila.
The Pablo family was very lucky. Several families residing along the waterways and railway lines of Metropolitan Manila were resettled in previous years to “house and lot” development project outside the metropolis, where there are enough lands, but work is very tough to find.
The Family Townhomes Project in Taguig City has gained the attention of some other municipalities in search for models for inexpensive housing project for slum residents.
The Habitat for Humanity, an international housing charitable trust, plans to make use of Taguig City as a ”study city” at the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum, which is organised in Singapore in September.
The forum will determine how the private sectors, social organisations, and governments can work hand in hand to give solutions to housing problems of poor families in a region where 60 percent of the slums in the world exist.
Mrs. Elvie Pablo and her family relocated their furniture into a 26 square metres standard housing unit. Each unit of the 96 apartments have walls, but with no cement plaster and its floor is only cement. Each also has electricity connection, tap and toilet
Tenants obtain certificates of ownership, but make a heavily subsidised payment price of 300,000 pesos or S$9,650 for their units at a rate of 950 pesos every month. The financial and welfare institutions of the government grant loans for these families at below-market interest rates.
These payments are below the rate for a small crude shelter in one of the squatter settlements in the city charged by squatter syndicates and slum landlords.
According to Taguig Mayor Sigfrido Tinga, “The city doesn’t expect to recover the costs on the project. If you try to do that, you can never really target the poor, but there are other pluses in better law and order, public health and education”.
HDB housing project of Singapore serves as a role model for this housing project: “It gave us an idea of what could be done, and they started off medium-rise”, said Mr. Tinga.
Taguig is a clear example of the high levels of poverty and wealth that strike several visitors to this place of 12 million inhabitants. However, not like the rest of Manila, which emerged its seams many years ago, Taguig, with a total population of 600,000 people, has space to grow.
There is a huge housing accumulation for the capital’s unlawful residents, estimated at 727,000 families in 2000 by the National Housing Authority. The city of Taguig has approximately 30,000 squatter households, but the capital’s maximum influx of migrators.
“We obviously can’t do social housing for everybody,” said the mayor. Two thousand units were budgeted to be constructed in blocks within the city this year. ”We want a good mix of tenants in each project – street vendors, small traders, teachers and policemen”.
Insufficient salaries of public workers, such as policemen and teachers compel many to reside in unauthorised settlements.
The combined incomes of a couple, namely, police officer Ramil Erlanda and teacher Marie-Luz allowed them to simply furnish their unit but in a cleverly manner. Like several residents, they created a mezzanine to serve as their children’s bedroom.
The relocation from the slums seems to be a culture shock for many new residents who are more used to throwing their garbage in a nearest open area. However, the project’s association of residents gently adjusts them right.