The government is boosting housing projects in the southern part of the Philippines to provide underprivileged Filipinos with livable communities.
Toward this end, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) recently inked a memorandum of agreement with three local government units in Mindanao namely Kidapawan City, M’lang in Cotabato and Magsaysay in Davao del Sur.
This is for the development of socialized housing projects under the administration’s flagship Building Adequate, Livable, Affordable and Inclusive Filipino communities (BALAI) program.
BALAI aims to provide sustainable, resilient and affordable housing units to Filipinos, especially the underprivileged.
“We want to continue providing decent and affordable housing and sustainable communities to underprivileged Filipinos in rural areas through a whole-of-nation approach and close coordination with LGUs,” DHSUD Secretary Eduardo del Rosario said.
“By establishing an effective partnership with LGUs, we will be able to reach out and assist more Filipinos who wish to have a house of their own,” he added.
The agreements were meant to extend assistance to the LGUs for their BALAI-certified socialized housing programs using funds from the incentivized compliance of private developers to balanced housing.
For Kidapawan, the agreement is for the development of relocation sites in Ilomavis and Indangan following the 14 Cotabato earthquakes that struck the city in October 2019, three of which were above magnitude six.
For M’Lang, the MOA will benefit recipients of relocation projects in Lepaga and New Esperanza.
Meanwhile, five multipurpose facilities located in various socialized relocation sites in the Magsaysay are now in the pipeline.
The agreements were the latest to be finalized by DHSUD following a similar accord with seven LGUs in Luzon last December.