City Hall mulls 10 buildings for homeless constituents

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government is eyeing 10 medium-rise buildings for homeless constituents next year if the proposed P500 million budget for socialized housing under the 2015 Annual Budget gets the approval of the members of the City Council.

Lawyer Collin Rosell, head of the Division for the Welfare of Urban Poor, said the city government will build the project to house the less fortunate and homeless constituents of the city.

He said during the marathon budget hearing last week that the buildings will be constructed on the city-owned properties in Lorega, Citi Center, and Barangay Mambaling.

Rosell said the projects are expected to be done within six months depending on the availability of funds.

“If there are available funds for the construction, we can directly build the 10 buildings,” he said.

Rosell said that the identified sites were already cleared of illegal structures and informal settlers and are ready for construction. He also lobbied for an incubator building (halfway house) amounting to P150 million.

The amount is part of the proposed annual appropriations under the Capital Outlay of the Office of the Mayor, which would cover the construction of three buildings at the Mambaling socialized housing site.

Rosell explained that the incubator building would serve as an interim “staging area or halfway house” of the transients’ urban poor.

“This will be their temporary abode before they will be transferred to their final housing and relocation sites,” he said.

The Cebu City Protocol Office, on the other hand, needs P3 million to “gear up” for the APEC summit next year.

The protocol officer, lawyer Leslie Ann Reyes, said the proposed P1.6 million is not enough to co-ver for all expenses needed in the preparation for the four to five APEC meetings to be held in Cebu City. The meetings will be transferred in Cebu City from Albay because of the threat of volcanic eruption from Mt. Mayon.

“We need to prepare because the entire APEC meeting will be held in Cebu. Also, we are expecting to have more dignita-ries and high-ranking officials during the Sinulog week in January,” she said.  (FREEMAN)