KIDAPAWAN CITY, (PNA) — Informal settlers have been sprouting like mushrooms in a developing city, Kidapawan City included.
Here, they settled in public areas near creeks and rivers not knowing the dangers that await them.
To avoid calamity involving informal settlers, Mayor Joseph Evangelista has found a solution, that is, to bring the settlers out of the danger zones in the city.
On Monday morning, he led the inauguration of a five-hectare land in Barangay Magsaysay, Kidapawan City which will serve as resettlement site for 370 informal settling families.
“With this resettlement site project, we will be able to come up with a decent low cost housing for our informal settler constituents in the city,” Evangelista told reporters.
He said the National Housing Authority has been helping the city government establish the resettlement site under NHA’s Resettlement Site Assistance Program for Local Government Units.
It aims to help provide low cost housing to informal settlers.
He said families living along danger areas such as riverbanks that are flooded during the onset of the rains, as well as road right of ways and those occupying government owned lands are beneficiaries of the project.
However, Evangelista clarified that the housing units are not “dole-out” since the beneficiaries will have to pay, on staggered basis, the city government once the unit is awarded to informal settlers.
The amount will be remitted to the NHA. Each housing unit is measured 72 square meters which will be enough to be occupied by a family of four, the NHA said in a statement.
The inauguration started with a blessing by Father Fred Palomar and a ‘pamaas’ ritual led by Indigenous Peoples elder Datu Lamberto Delfin.
The Kidapawan City Urban Poor Federation lauded Evangelista and the NHA for coming up with the resettlement project.
Urban Poor Federation President Eliza Madidis vowed that they will “police their own sector” to get rid of the unscrupulous practices being done by some informal settlers.
Among the basic rule in acquiring the housing unit is that beneficiary could not sell or lease the housing unit once it is fully awarded to them.
The City council is planning to pass an ordinance to legalize the policy.
NHA Regional Manager Engr. Rolando Teves also revealed a plan for the establishment of resettlement site for indigenous peoples in barangays Ilomavis and Balabag, Kidapawan City, next year.