Jakarta-wapresri.go.id Vice President Jusuf Kalla received the Chairman of the Central Board of Housing and Human Settlement Development Association (APERSI) Junaidi Abdillah, in the Office of the Vice President on Jalan Merdeka Utara, Jakarta, Monday (March 20).

Junaidi reported to the Vice President on the development of the one-million-houses program.

“From 3700 developers [who are Apersi’s members], 1,030 of them are active members. For this year, we are targeting [to build] 120,000 subsidized houses, increasing from 85,000 houses last year,” said Junaidi.

Junaidi then told about the problems faced by informal workers in owning a house due to stringent banking rules, while the number of the workers is quite large.

Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, who accompanied the Vice President at the meeting, said that to address the problem of housing for informal workers, his ministry has cooperated with the state-owned lender Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN) to develop micro-credit programs.

“Yesterday, we launched a house worth 70 million rupiah in Semarang for 300 traders of meatballs and noodles. They pay daily or weekly loans,” said Basuki.

Basuki added that in 2015 the one-million-houses program successfully built 790,000 houses and last year the program yielded in more than 800,000 houses. Real Estate Indonesia (REI), he said, is now also focusing on the development program of affordable housing for low-income people (MBR).

In response, the Vice President affirmed that the one-million-houses program should not be regarded merely as a project because it will be continuously running.

“This is not a project, as this will be continuously carried out, similar to infrastructure development. Thus, do not just think about the backlog. Put a normal [target] of 750,000 [houses] per year to be built because the number of [population] is increasing,” he said.

Housing development, he added, will never stop since the number of population increases by 1.5 percent per year.

“What we need are developers who do not only care of their own interests but also the interests of the society,” the Vice President argued.

According to the Vice President, dense population with the lack of housing has created slum areas in many major cities in the world.

He then lamented the condition of dense housing in Jakarta that is in line with the increase in the population which is not complemented with the efforts to meet the housing needs.

The Vice President also hoped, in the future, there will be no rationale for building a traditional house with one floor as it will only use up lands and leave no open space, especially children.

The Vice President also underscored the importance of laying good drains to prevent flooding.

“Environment must be of prime attention,” he said.