The changing face of boardinghouses

The changing face of boardinghouses

Boardinghouses, an important accommodation alternative for
many Jakartans, are booming in conjunction with the growth of
other service industries, such as new shopping centers needing
houses for staff, and university centers. The Jakarta Post's
reporters Devi M. Asmarani, IGGP Bayu Ismoyo, Imanuddin, Kosasih
Deradjat, Listiana Operananta, Primastuti Handayani, Riyadi and
Sri Wahyuni explore the business. Related stories on Page 3
and Page 9.

JAKARTA (JP): For 58-year-old Ida, the Spanish phrase mi casa
es su casa (my house is your house) is more than a friendly line
displayed on a wall.

When her late husband retired three years ago, she found a
means to substitute his meager civil-service income while at the
same time replacing the companionship lost after her children
left home.

She let out the vacant rooms in her house.

Charging the five boarders, all women, Rp 200,000 a month, she
provided them each with a 20-square-meter bedroom, breakfast,
laundry services and free use of the telephone for local calls.

"It's really more like staying at your relative's house," says
Lisa, one of the five women.

But don't let her fool you into thinking it is the standard
hospitality provided in Jakarta's boardinghouses.

Ten or twenty years ago, it was common to see housewives like
Ida, whose children had married, board their rooms to university
students or other single people. But today, the boardinghouse
business has become an industry in itself.

Encouraged by the high demand for temporary housing, mostly
for singles, many people let rooms in their houses from more
entrepreneurial motives.

According to the Housing Agency, there were 21,627
boardinghouses in the Jakarta area last year. The agency's head,
Ongky Sukasah, said only about a third of the number were
officially recorded. City rules state boarding a home needs a
business license, and little is heard of action taken against
people dodging taxes or not licensing their homes.

Many of the boarding houses are located in highly
industrialized and commercial districts. And each area offers its
own price range.

Take the "Golden Triangle" area around Jl. Sudirman, Karet and
Kuningan in South Jakarta, where many young white-collar workers
live.

Boardinghouses here usually charge slightly higher prices than
other areas. A boarding house in Jl. Setiabudi, for example,
charges between Rp 300,000 and Rp 650,000 a month.

For this amount, however, tenants get facilities not offered
at other boardinghouses, such as satellite television, air-
conditioned rooms, a private bathroom, and a parking space.

They also get the luxuries of privacy and freedom, frequently
denied at boardinghouses like Ida's.

Some boardinghouses in Jakarta still retain the traditional
strict rules of Indonesian extended families. Ida imposes a 10
p.m. curfew on her tenants, all of whom are independent career
women in their mid-to-late twenties, and also forbids them having
male guests in their rooms.

At other boardinghouses, not only tenants can enter or leave
at any hour: there are no limitations as to whom the tenants can
have in their rooms.

"I don't care, if they have a stay-in guest of the opposite
sex, as long as they pay the nightly charge for a guest," says
the woman who owns a 40-room boardinghouse in Karet.

University of Indonesia sociologist Paulus Wirutomo said the
city's booming business and industry encouraged the mushrooming
of boardinghouses, long popular with university students.

Depok, an area adjacent to Jakarta and administered by West
Java, is a perfect example of an area transformed into an
education center for many Jakartans.

The location of the country's most prestigious state-funded
university, the University of Indonesia (UI), and several private
universities, much of Depok's local business revolves around
students.

Room rents range from Rp 50,000 to Rp 250,000, depending on
the distance between homes and the universities and colleges.
Many of the rooms are rented according to the school schedule,
for periods of three or six months.

Sarie Febriane, a third year UI student, says she and her
roommate pay Rp 105,000 a month each for their shared room. The
room charge includes laundry and hot tea in the morning.

The boardinghouse charges Rp 1,700 a meal, for those who want
to eat in the house, she says.

Sarie's boardinghouse requires first-time tenants to pay six
months in advance for their first six months. This rule was
imposed by the landlady after many years experience dealing with
prospective students. They rented rooms for only up to three
months and left after failing entrance tests, she said.

Only home

But boardinghouses do not only cater to students and single,
middle class, white-collar employees. For some people, it is the
only kind of home they will ever have.

Rido, 35, a teacher at a public junior high school in East
Jakarta has been living in an 18-square-meter boardinghouse room
for more than 11 years.

He started living there while he was single, and now shares it
with his wife and daughter.

Rido and his wife, also a teacher, realize that buying their
own house will perhaps remain a dream, considering their meager
salaries.

"Our salaries increase on an arithmetical progression, while
housing prices rise in geometrical progression," he says.

The government's housing loan for teachers, of about Rp 2
million, is equal to just one year's rent, he adds.

Members of lower income groups often share small houses with
several people. Newspaper hawker Sumaji, 39, shares a 21-square-
meter house in Jl. Radio Dalam, South Jakarta, with three other
street hawkers.

Sumaji, who sells newspapers and magazines in the Blok M
shopping center, says he never dreams of having his own house in
Jakarta.

"It's just beyond my capacity," he said.