Don't know where to find social housing?

The immediate issues mentioned by workers at the meeting still revolved around housing, children's education, and cost of living.

In 18 comments sent by workers and laborers to the city leaders, all mentioned social housing. This shows that the majority are looking forward to this policy and taking advantage of the opportunity to meet directly with the city leaders to speak up.

"Most of us come from other provinces to work in the city. We work in inner-city districts, but due to expensive housing costs, most of us move to the suburbs to rent houses at low prices.

"I hear a lot about social housing but it seems so far away. I only hear about it on the news and radio, and I don't know where to find out more," said Nguyen Tran Dang Minh (District 10 Public Service LLC).

Mr. Tran Anh Kiet - Chairman of the Trade Union of Hitachi Zosen Vietnam Co., Ltd. - specifically asked how many apartments and boarding houses the city will have for workers and laborers to rent because there is a policy to reserve land for building rental housing, kindergartens, schools as well as cultural and entertainment venues for workers and laborers.

As a female worker, Ms. Bui Thi Xuan Hue (30-4 Garment and Leather Export Joint Stock Company) hopes that the city will pay attention to creating conditions for children of workers and laborers to have the opportunity to study at public schools.

"Currently, the conditions for applying to a boarding school are very difficult. If you don't apply to a boarding school, you won't be able to pick up and drop off your children because you work in factories and workshops.

"Unable to get a public boarding school, having to get a private boarding school is very expensive, workers' income cannot cover it," Ms. Hue stated the reality.

Build 26,500 houses for workers and laborers to rent

Spending an afternoon listening to the workers' thoughts and then having dinner together at the headquarters of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Mr. Phan Van Mai frankly discussed the workers' concerns.

He said the number of social housing units is very small due to problems with land use planning and the problem of effective profitability, leading to little investment by businesses in social housing.

At the same time, the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee shared the city's three solutions to the housing problem of workers and people in general.

Firstly, upgrading boarding houses is the most practical solution at present. Accordingly, reviewing boarding houses, requiring boarding house owners to build according to certain standards along with policies for boarding house owners to borrow money to build boarding houses.

Besides, continue supporting policies related to tenants such as electricity and water support, although "there have been times when they have not met the requirements".

Second, build rental housing in areas with a large number of workers at reasonable costs. Mr. Mai said the city's goal is to build 35,000 units, but so far there are very few. After reviewing, the Government has assigned the target that Ho Chi Minh City must build at least 26,500 units.

"After listening to the opinions of workers today, I see that this demand is very large. The city will urgently assign it to the Department of Construction, making efforts to have houses for rent next year, at least reaching the target of 26,500 units assigned by the Government.

The project locations have been determined, and in the coming time, the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation will widely inform workers about the standards for renting social housing," said Mr. Mai.

Third, to build social housing, the city will support workers to borrow money to buy. Mr. Mai said the city needs to solve the housing needs of millions of workers, so this solution only solves a small part.

Instead, if there is interest rate support from commercial banks, it can be expanded to tens of thousands of households with the opportunity to borrow to buy houses.