Minister of PKP Urges SOEs to Build Flats for Middle Class in Major Cities

Minister of People’s Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait, or Ara, continues to push for the optimisation of SOE assets for public housing. Not only for underprivileged residents, Ara also requests the utilisation of SOE assets for vertical housing or rusun for the lower middle class in various major cities such as Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya, Makassar, Semarang, Bandung, Tangerang, Depok, and Bogor.

“We are also inviting SOEs to synergise in preparing housing, of an upward nature, namely rusun for the lower middle class,” said Ara during a press conference after a coordination meeting at the SOE Policy Agency (BP BUMN) office in Jakarta on Wednesday (1/4/2026).

Ara stated that housing affordability has long been a bogeyman for the middle class. She admitted she will prepare regulations for the distribution scheme of rusun for the middle class.

“We know the middle class also has many who need it, please prepare the regulations, those with different economic capabilities, perhaps different tastes, different designs, and different locations,” she said.

At the same venue, BPS Head Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti said BPS provides full support for the Ministry of PKP and BP BUMN in realising President Prabowo Subianto’s directives. Amalia explained that 13 percent of households in Indonesia do not have homes.

“The highest is DKI Jakarta, the backlog of not having housing reaches 40.59 percent,” said Amalia.

Based on administrative areas, continued Amalia, Central Jakarta is the area in DKI Jakarta with the highest backlog rate of 55.83 percent or as many as 146,729 households. Amalia said the construction of rusun for residents along the railway tracks in Pasar Senen and Tanah Abang is a government intervention to reduce the backlog rate.

“This is something extraordinary because it is indeed an intervention where the backlog is the highest, namely in Central Jakarta,” said Amalia.