A ceremony held to hand over a house to a poor family in Bình Phước Province’s Bình Long Town. – VNA/VNS Photo

BÌNH PHƯỚC – Bình Phước Province aims to wrap up its programme of eliminating temporary and dilapidated dwellings and replace them with concrete houses for poor people next year.

The southeastern province has mobilised funding from various sources to build houses for the poor in recent years.

They are at least 50 sq.m each and have corrugated iron roofs.

In 2019-23 the local Fund for the Poor provided VNĐ313 billion (US$12.3 million) to 5,017 families to rebuild temporary or dilapidated houses.

The province is building 99 houses for poor ethnic people under a national programme this year.

In the first half of the year its Fatherland Front Committee assisted 121 poor and near-poor households in Bù Gia Mập, Lộc Ninh, Bù Đăng, and Bù Đốp districts with building “great solidarity” houses. This “NhàĐại đoàn kết” programme is meant for poor and near-poor households with the support of organisations and individuals.

Lâm Bang of Lộc Ninh District’s Lộc Quang Commune has rebuilt his 67.5 sq.m house using VNĐ80 million ($3,200) given by the Fund for the Poor.

He was glad to receive the assistance and his family would do its farming better to ensure a stable life, he said.

Đỗ Thị Mai Hương in Đông Phú District’s Đồng Tâm Commune used to be poor as her husband suffered from mental illness and they had three school-aged children.

The Fatherland Front Committee provided her with VNĐ80 million ($3,200) to rebuild her house and the district Fund for the Poor gave her a cow that was worth VNĐ30 million ($1,200) and produced calves.

With a house to live in, she feels secure about going to work to increase her income, and her family has thus escaped poverty, she said.

Phước Long and Chơn Thành towns and Đồng Xoài City have completed the programme to eliminate temporary and dilapidated houses.

Lê Thị Xuân Trang, head of the province Party Committee’s mass mobilisation board and chairwoman of the Fatherland Front Committee, said local administrations should address the problem of housing land and construction.

Fatherland Front Committees at all levels should enhance advocacy about reducing poverty sustainably and mobilise more resources to build houses for the poor, she added. – VNS