DHSUD chief: Housing projects not for free

“IT'S not for free.”

So said Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Secretary Jose Rizalino “Jerry” Acuzar of the housing projects being implemented by the government.

Acuzar along with Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) over the weekend to start the establishment of the 10,000 housing units under the Yuhum Village in the city by October 2022.

He said the beneficiaries need to be members of the Pag-Ibig Fund, whose funds will be initially used to pump-prime the housing program.

In Bacolod, the Yuhum Village housing projects will rise in the city’s relocation site in Barangay Vista Alegre and coastal villages like Barangay Banago, which will consist of five-story structures made of concrete modular houses.

Under the agreement they signed, Bacolod City will support the program by committing to identify and allocate to DHSUD a parcel or parcels of its land for the development of the foregoing housing projects.

The agreement also states that the parties aim to develop housing projects for the benefit of the residents of Bacolod City, especially the Informal Settler Families (ISFs), both for residential and commercial purposes, by pooling together their technical, financial and manpower resources for the development of the said projects.

For his part, Benitez said each housing unit will cost P800,000 to P1 million, adding that they will discuss the final designs and technology to be used for their establishment.

“We have a program (aside from housing), for different sectors of the society and as we speak right now there is a socio-economic survey being conducted for all informal settler families so that we would be able to cater to their needs,” Benitez said.

The City is currently doing an environmental scanning of the city’s ISF to determine how much they can afford so the city government can tailor-fit its housing program within their capacity, the mayor added.

The city is looking at the 24.5-square-meter initial design that can accommodate about three to four persons per unit.

Recently, the DHSUD launched the "Pambansang Pabahay Para Sa Pilipino: Zero Informal Settler Families (ISF) Program for 2028 aiming to build at least a million housing units every year or a total of six million housing units in the next six years.

It aims to address the six million housing backlog in the country.