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.