Stricter supervision over the qualifications of people living in
low-rent housing will be implemented to avoid welfare abuse, the
Ministry of Construction (MOC) revealed at the weekend.
Applicants are subject to a verification procedure from the time
they submit their applications to getting approval and through
finally exiting the system.
The country's low-rent housing policy has begun to pay off, as
76 percent of the country's cities have adopted the mechanism, said
a report released by the MOC, which urged the remaining 70 cities
to join in.
China has invested 4.74 billion yuan (US$590 million) in the
program, and more than 329,000 families have benefited.
Among them, 29 percent of the families received rental
subsidies, 14 percent have found homes in government-owned or
rented houses, and 55 percent receive rent discounts from their
landlords, the report said.
Currently 11 Chinese regions, including Hebei, Zhejiang and Shanxi provinces, have made the policy's
implementation an important criterion in evaluating local
government officials' performance.
In Beijing, Shanghai and Hebei Province, local governments have
mapped out their needy urban families and succeeded in covering
most of them with subsidies.
Beijing has increased the number of residents - including those
receiving minimum living allowances to low-income ones - who are
benefiting from the low-rent housing policy thanks to a revision in
the urban low-rent housing plan made at the end of last year.
According to the plan, families with monthly per capita income
lower than 580 yuan (US$72) and living in areas smaller than 7.5
square meters per person are allowed to apply for help.
The threshold last year for applying for a subsidy for rented
housing is 300 yuan a month, which is minimum to live in the
city.
A group of 13 households low-income families become on Friday
the first beneficiaries of the revised housing policy.
By the end of last year, 15,000 residents had moved into
subsidized rental housing.
This year, Beijing will continue to expand the program through
construction as subsidies will remain the main solution to the
low-rent housing issue.
Similar subsidy programs exist in most other Chinese cities.
However, some experts say they see flaws in the current system.
Some less developed cities lack the money to help their
impoverished residents, such as Suqian and Taizhou, in northern
Jiangsu Province.
"Government money is mainly invested in other more urgent issues
such as compulsory education, but we will solve the housing problem
step by step," said an employee of the Suqian Labor and Social
Security Bureau who declined to be identified.
About 20,000 families are covered by the policy in this eastern
province, but the number of those in need may exceed 500,000,
according to some estimates.
Some analysts propose using tougher criteria to make sure the
subsidies go to those whose need is the most dire.
(China Daily April 11, 2006)