Backlog for Cebu City’s 200,000 settlers

The Cebu city government continues to miss housing targets resulting in increasing backlogs in the city’s 80 barangays.

Councilor Alvin Dizon, chairman of the City Council committee on housing, stressed this in  a privilege speech last Wednesday.

The city has 41,000 families  living in informal settlements in  public and private lands.

In the 2015 budget, City Hall has P300 million for acquisition of resettlement lots and another P250,000 for site development.

Around 10,000 households are located in danger zones like creeks, rivers and other waterways.

Dizon said that with an  average size of five persons per family, more than 200,000 residents  live under precarious conditions.

“And by all indications, this backlog is growing as the city population increases, migration to urban centers intensifies and the city government continue to miss its annual targets” Dizon said

Cebu City only provided resettlement for  10,464 families in 15 years from 1998 to 2012, or an average of 700 families per year.

Dizon said sustainability is a crucial issue in the government housing program, particularly in relocation sites.

Most of these sites are not sustainable and have substandard structures.

“I have seen firsthand how indescribably awful the conditions in the government relocation sites are. Shoddily built, half-finished structures, without electrical power, without potable water. This unfortunately describes many of the relocation sites,” he said

Dizon said that while  a big  allocation and policy reform for the housing programs is encouraging,  the capacity of the executive department to implement it is  another story.

The council  passed City Ordinance 2383 or an ordinance establishing guidelines for acquisition, valuation and disposition of lands for socialized housing.

Resettlement, he said, should be pursued in accordance with the“proposal developed by the community being relocated itself, with the assitance of concerned local government agencies.