HCM City has built and repaired 9,000 houses for poor households since 2011.— VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vũ

HCM CITY—  HCM City has built or repaired nearly 9,000 houses for poor households since 2011, the year the Prime Minister changed the housing policy, according to the city's People's Committee.

None of the city’s poor households qualified for charity housing under the new change, so the city adjusted its housing policy for the poor.

From 2011 to 2015 it built more than 7,000 charity houses and repaired leaks at 5,559 houses 

In the 2016-2020 period, the city’s Sustainable Poverty Programme began to apply multidimensional poverty standards. These standards took into account education-training, housing-clean water, healthcare, employment, social insurance and access to information.

In the same period, the city built 1,377 charity houses, repaired 456 charity houses, and repaired leaks at 2,014 houses.

This year, the city expects to build and repair 129 houses for poor and near-poor households

By the end of 2020, the city aims to complete the target of having no poor households according to standards for the 2019-2020 period.

It aims to reduce the poverty rate to below 0.5 per cent and increase the poor’s average per capita income by 3.5 times compared to 2011.

In addition, the city will provide preferential loans and small amounts of credit for poor households to organise production, or start businesses and services. It will also deploy vocational training programmes and reduce tuition for poor students.—VNS