With the growing number of informal settlers, the housing crisis in the country is a ticking time bomb.
This was disclosed by Vice President Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo Tuesday during the Housing Solution Congress at the SMX Mall of Asia, Pasay City, stressing that housing is a “very personal and public crisis.”
“Let me state the obvious. The problem we are faced with is urgent, huge, and difficult. The housing crisis is a ticking time bomb,” she said.
In her keynote address at the event, the chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) allowed the figures from her agency to speak for the housing problems.
According to last year’s preliminary data from HUDCC, she cited the number of informal settler families went up to 2.2 million despite the one million housing units subsidized by the government since 2010.
A survey by the National Housing Authority (NHA) in 2011 also showed that of the 1.5 million informal settler families in the country, 52 percent of them were living in danger areas mostly outside Metro Manila.
In the past six years, Robredo also mentioned the total housing backlog could reach 5.7 million.
“If you divide the projected backlog of 5.7 million by the number of days in six years, you will find that we need to build 2,602 homes per day in the next six years,” she pointed out.
With these, the Vice President reiterated the need to come up with a comprehensive road map to address the housing problem.
“That is why a comprehensive road map that is based on accurate baseline data, global best practices, public and private financing solutions, and stakeholder consultations is critical to our success,” she said. (Raymund Antonio)