MORE than 150 families recently moved out of government-subsidized homes in Futian District because of rent hikes which the government refused to cover, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.
The Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News said most of the 150 families were housed in expensive residential estates in Futian. The homes were part of a policy the city government adopted in 2008 to provide subsidies for families who could not afford an apartment in the skyrocketing housing market or did not qualify for low-price and low-rent government housing.
The homes were not owned by the government. District governments rented the homes from individual property owners and then rented them to eligible families, the Yangcheng Evening News said.
Property owners, however, recently raised the rents, which the government refused to pay, forcing the 150 families to move out.
We cannot afford the rent because it is way too expensive for my family, said a woman whose family recently moved out of a government-subsidized home in the Jindimingjin housing estate near Futian Checkpoint.
According to figures from a neighborhood real estate broker, a one-bedroom apartment of about 40 square meters cost 3,000 yuan (US$448) a month and the cheapest rent in the estate is 2,500 yuan per month for a 35-square-meter studio.
How can we afford such high rents? So we had to move out, said a male tenant who asked not to be named.
Under the policy, the homes were partly subsidized by the city and district governments. But, next year, the city government would stop paying subsidies to these families, meaning they would receive only half the original subsidy from the Futian District Government, said an unidentified official with the Futian District Construction Bureau.
Half the families chose to end the leases because they did not want to pay for what was previously paid by the city government, in addition to the rent hikes, the official said.
But the official did not say why the city government ceased subsidizing the housing project.
The News said such government-subsidized homes were also ignored in Nanshan and Bao an districts.
The Nanshan District Government offered 490 apartments to mid-income families in 2008, but more than 250 homes had been returned and 34 apartments remained empty, the News said.
(SD News)
