Low-cost houses for the poor

Local families with average per-capita monthly income of less than 2,100 yuan (US$300), who have an average per-capita gross floor area space of less than 14 square meters and total household financial assets of less than 200,000 yuan, can apply for budget houses, the Shanghai Housing, Land and Resource Administration Bureau said yesterday.

The announcement came after the city's top advisory body members did Internet-based studies into Shanghai's housing welfare system.

The Shanghai government is planning to build budget homes for those who could either afford to buy commodity houses from the market or were qualified to get low-rent houses from the government.

Under an earlier blueprint, the city planned to build about 18 million square meters of new apartments next year, with 45 percent set aside for budget and low-rent houses as well as homes for relocated residents.

Budget homes will be offered with limited ownership and are not allowed to be traded on the market within five years from the purchase.

Families would be offered either actual apartments at a lower rent than the market or cash allowances to subsidize the family's market-price leasing.

However, bureau director Feng Jingming said lack of apartments and verification of applicants were the two biggest challenges for the housing management administration.

The city will have 33,335 low-rent house beneficiaries by the end of April. But just 2,903 families from them got apartments, accounting for only 8.7 percent.

"As many of the beneficiaries are needy families, the cash allowance was not enough for them to find a proper apartment on the market so their difficulties were not solved," said Cai Jiaqi, a member of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference.

The bureau pledged to raise the percentage of actual low-rent apartments to 20 percent within the next five years.

TAG: for poor the low-cost houses