Tet atmosphere in social housing

Social housing area in Bao Vinh ward, Long Khanh city (Dong Nai province) is decorated to welcome the Lunar New Year.

Compared to the needs of the area with the largest concentration of workers in the country, the supply of social housing in Dong Nai is still scarce at this point. With the drastic participation of the local government, striving to start construction of nearly 9,900 social housing units in 2025, hopefully, next spring, there will be more spacious, safe homes, bustling with the exciting atmosphere of Tet for families of workers far from home.

Changing lives thanks to social housing

Welcoming us into a new house that still smells of paint, with a construction area of ​​96 square meters, including 1 ground floor and 1 upper floor, with full amenities, spacious and clean, Mr. Bui Ba Thanh Hoai happily calls his house "a happy home". For a long time, the worker who works as a driver (for a company specializing in printing products) has always dreamed of having a house to settle down and make a living. However, with a modest salary, owning an apartment at market prices has always been out of reach.

After living with his biological parents in Xuan Hoa ward, Long Khanh city for many years, a turning point in his life appeared when the local social housing development program created an opportunity for him to access preferential loans to buy the house of his dreams. "After having a stable place to live, I plan to get married to build a happy future together" - Mr. Hoai confided while taking advantage of the weekend before Tet to clean, arrange furniture, and decorate the house.

The family eagerly gathered to celebrate Tet in a beautiful social housing, this feeling of happiness for the workers is understood as a dream come true after many years of hard work, saving, and striving in a foreign land. Turning on the lively spring music, they busily prepared everything, arranged the altar to worship their ancestors, decorated the house with apricot pots, kumquat trees...

The spring atmosphere seems warmer, more prosperous, and more bustling than when we were living in cramped, makeshift rented rooms. Putting aside daily worries, residents of social housing areas wrap banh tet and banh chung together, eat, sing karaoke, and wish each other a new year filled with good health, prosperity, luck, and a life that gradually accumulates more prosperity.

Right before the Lunar New Year of At Ty 2025, some households in the social housing area A6-A7 in Quang Vinh ward, Bien Hoa city, "broke ground", officially received their dream home and eagerly welcomed the first Tet in their own home. This is the true and complete Tet experience that the couple and their children have enjoyed since they set out to find work in Dong Nai.

There are cases where people have had to wait for many years to have the opportunity to access and boldly apply to buy an apartment. 435 social housing units, built very methodically, with full amenities, have met the needs of 975 people, marking a new step forward in solving the urgent need for accommodation for policy beneficiaries, low-income workers, workers in industrial zones, armed forces, civil servants, public employees and families with housing difficulties.

Expect more tangible movement

Most of the planned social housing projects in Dong Nai are located in the inner city area, near the center, quite convenient for workers working in industrial parks. Recently, businesses have been increasingly proactive in entering the social housing segment and increasing the supply of actual "products".

Typically, in Phuoc Tan ward, Bien Hoa city has just started construction of phase 1 of the NXH2 social housing project, block A. The project has a scale of more than 1,200 apartments, taking on an urgent role in arranging accommodation for people who are not eligible for resettlement when land is recovered for the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau expressway project, meeting accommodation needs for people and workers in the industrial park.

The construction sector of Dong Nai province has proposed a plan to start construction of nearly 9,900 social housing units this year and if implemented, it will create momentum to help the province exceed the target of 10,000 units for the entire 2021-2025 period. Accumulated to the end of 2024, the whole province has only completed and put into use nearly 1,700 social housing units, still a long way from reaching the planned destination.

At the first meeting to discuss this important issue in 2025, Chairman of Dong Nai Provincial People's Committee Vo Tan Duc said that the results of social housing implementation to date are still modest due to the slow progress. To increase supply and contribute to ensuring social security for people, it is recommended that districts and cities in the province direct the review and propose a list of land lots for bidding to select investors for the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the Provincial People's Council; continue to supplement other land funds with suitable locations for social housing construction, and report to the Department of Construction to adjust the social housing plan. For commercial housing projects where investors want to do social housing projects on a 20% land fund, the Department of Planning and Investment will appraise the total investment and advise the Provincial People's Committee to adjust.

As a locality with more than 1.3 million workers, of which foreigners account for about 60% and 700,000 people work in industrial parks, housing is still a very pressing issue for Dong Nai province. With 48 industrial parks expected to be completed by 2030, instead of the 32 industrial parks currently operating, Dong Nai will attract a huge number of workers in the next 5 years.

This reality requires those responsible to improve their ability to act with new thinking and new ways of working to resolve the "phase difference" between supply and demand of social housing; thereby, realizing the goal of investing in the construction of at least 50,000 social housing units in the 2021-2030 period; in the 2026-2030 roadmap alone, it is necessary to focus on forming an additional 40,000 social housing units in the province.