National Assembly deputies propose prioritizing single mothers raising young children renting houses

In the afternoon of October 28, continuing the 2nd Session, the National Assembly discussed in the hall about the draft Law on Housing (amended).

Speaking, delegate Nguyen Ngoc Son (National Assembly Delegation of Hai Phong City) said that it is necessary to strongly shift the thinking of housing development from increasing supply to meeting the needs and affordability of the people.

Agreeing with the orientation of developing diverse types of housing, the delegate said that the biggest problem today is not simply the lack of housing, but the imbalance in product structure and people's accessibility.

Reality shows that there are areas that develop many commercial housing projects, but the selling price far exceeds the affordability of most workers. Meanwhile, the demand for affordable housing, social housing and long-term rental housing is still very large.

From there, delegates proposed to supplement the principle of determining housing demand and development structure based on income, affordability, housing rental or purchase demand, population fluctuations, labor market and infrastructure system responsiveness.

At the same time, there should be a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the implementation of social housing and rental housing development targets, instead of only focusing on the total floor area or number of apartments built.

Discussing at the hall, delegate Vo Ngoc Thanh Truc (Delegation of National Assembly Deputies of Ho Chi Minh City) highly appreciated the efforts of the drafting agency in amending the Housing Law, especially the timeliness in institutionalizing the orientation of prioritizing the development of rental housing, policy housing and removing bottlenecks in investment.

However, from the practical perspective of a special city like Ho Chi Minh City, where housing pressure is high, the delegate raised a number of issues.

According to the delegate, housing policy must originate from the affordability and actual living conditions of the people.

In Clause 3, Article 37, the draft stipulates that housing rental prices are invested with capital from the Housing Fund according to the principle of fully calculating capital recovery costs. From a financial perspective, calculating correctly and fully is a principle to preserve resources. But from a social security perspective, it is not possible to shift the entire burden of these costs onto the shoulders of low-income people.

It is proposed to supplement the principle that the rental price must be determined in relation to the affordability of each group of subjects, and the difference (if any) needs to have a mechanism to support and subsidize from the budget or from commercial exploitation revenues of the Housing Fund in a transparent manner" - the delegate gave his opinion.

The delegate also highly appreciated Clause 5, Article 59 for paying attention to cases where people have houses, but their workplaces are far away, especially after arranging administrative units.

This is a very practical issue, owning a house does not mean settling down, if every day workers have to struggle to travel too far to work.

Accordingly, it is proposed that the Law specifically assign a framework of unified criteria on distance, travel time and assign localities to concretize, avoiding the situation where in the same situation, some places enjoy policies, while others do not.

In particular, it is necessary to add to the list of priorities for renting houses in Clause 2, Article 31 the subjects "single women raising young children with housing difficulties" to ensure synchronization with Point c, Clause 2, Article 60 of the draft law.

For these mothers, a stable place to live is not only a place to shelter from rain and sun, but also the core foundation for them to keep their jobs, raise their children to adulthood and overcome difficulties in life," the delegate added.

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