500,000 homeless as Jakarta faces housing needs

500,000 homeless as Jakarta faces housing needs

JAKARTA (JP): The capital has a hard time meeting housing
needs with around 500,000 homeless people, a housing agency
official said.

The main problem was not only anticipating higher population
growth, but also meeting the needs of the thousands of families
evicted to make way for government or private projects, Nusmardi
head of the housing agency's development control said Monday.

Based on the agency's 1995 figures 478,600 of Jakarta's 7.5
million people were homeless. With an average annual two percent
growth there would be about 500,000 homeless now, he said.
Jakarta is now home to about 9 million people.

"But what is difficult to predict is the number of people who
will be evicted. Fire victims must also be taken into account,"
he said.

The figure might not include the families in shacks along
river banks and railways, he said.

Each year the agency aims to provide 70,000 homes including
low cost houses and apartments. It hopes to meet housing needs in
15 years.

"But we can only meet a little more than half the annual
target," he said.

On Monday President Soeharto said the government allocated Rp
1.5 trillion to support the building of 110,000 low-cost houses
nation-wide in the 1997-1998 period.

Meanwhile failure to meet the target means the number of
homeless just keeps growing, he said.

This is why the agency supported a National Development
Planning Board (Bappenas) proposal for compensation to be
provided in public projects which affect more than 20 homes.

He said the proposal was made during a July seminar on a
sustainable Jabotabek (Greater Jakarta). Evicted residents
complaining to the city council, for instance, are often told
they have no right to compensation from public projects.

However a legal expert at the seminar, Koesnadi
Hardjasoemantri, said a 1993 presidential decree on land
acquisition for public interest infers landowners have a right to
be paid market rates.

At the seminar World Bank consultants also said vital
infrastructure projects like the Flood Control system would
continue to be delayed because residents would continue to resist
unless they got adequate compensation to move elsewhere.

"We supported the Bappenas idea because when people cannot
afford to build homes again they add to our burden," Nusmardi
said.

Nusmardi said the agency still hoped the private sector would
take a role in building cheap houses or apartments.

The agency only manages to build about 3,000 of its annual
target of 10,500 cheap apartments while the state-owned housing
company, PT Perumnas, builds an average 2,000 apartments. The
remainder should be built by the private sector. However private
developers say they would cost too much to build low cost homes
due to land prices and other fees.

A 1992 gubernatorial decree rules private developers who build
luxurious apartments must allocate 20 percent of their land for
low cost apartments.

Nusmardi said the housing agency now planned to build more low
cost apartments for rent, rather than for sale.

"It is difficult to monitor people transferring their
ownership rights," he said. Several low cost apartments have been
sealed by the agency because it was discovered ownership had been
illegally transferred to others.

Ownership of low cost apartments may not be transferred
because most were built for fire victims and former slum
residents. However many people transfer their ownership rights
saying they can no longer afford the monthly installments and
maintenance costs. (anr)