Difficulty proving income
Ms. Nguyen Nga and her family have lived in the Kim Chung Workers' Housing Area (Dong Anh District, Hanoi) for more than a decade. As a garment worker, her husband is a freelancer, Ms. Nga is very interested in the CT3 Kim Chung social housing project that is about to open for sale. However, access to project information is a major obstacle.
She said that the couple did not know where to find official information from the investor. Every time she went to the project site, she was often approached by "brokers" who offered to complete the home purchase application with a fee of up to hundreds of millions of VND, causing the family to panic and worry.
The difficulties did not stop there. Providing the income of her husband - a technology driver is also a big obstacle.
"Income is unstable, so when coming to the ward to request confirmation, the staff refuses to accept the documents because there is no legal basis" - Ms. Nga shared.
Not only Ms. Nga's family, many workers with real needs for social housing still struggle with procedural barriers, especially income confirmation, a mandatory condition but too difficult for freelance workers.
Ms. Vu Thi Thu Hoai - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thuong Thanh Ward (Long Bien, Hanoi) - said that in the ward, there are a number of social housing projects receiving registration documents. Many people in need have come to the ward People's Committee to confirm low income. But up to now, the ward has not been able to resolve these confirmation requests because there is no basis to confirm them to citizens.
In particular, for freelance workers, verification is even more difficult because people do not declare personal income tax and do not participate in insurance, leading to the ward having no basis for confirmation.
Current concerns
Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh - Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS) - shared that currently, many workers, although having urgent housing needs, cannot access social housing at their workplace or workplace due to not meeting the conditions for confirming their permanent or temporary residence status according to regulations.
Some groups of people are really disadvantaged but are excluded due to income criteria; the requirement for minimum capital when borrowing to buy a house - 20% is a big challenge for low-income people, especially unskilled workers, young workers who have not accumulated; seriously lacking social housing products for rent; there is no separate policy for seasonal workers.
To remove existing concerns, localities must proactively issue support policies suitable to the characteristics of actual needs: developing rental housing, diversifying models, selecting the right groups of subjects with real needs. And strengthen inspection, supervision, and strictly handle acts of policy profiteering, harassment, and making implementation difficult.
Regarding output policies, it is necessary to be transparent and simplify procedures for determining beneficiaries, moving from the pre-inspection to post-inspection mechanism. There are policies to support leasing and hire-purchase for groups of workers who do not have enough financial capacity to buy a house. Build a national database system on social housing to ensure fairness, transparency and synchronization in access.
