Housing Bureau opens public housing tender to allocate 1,300 or more units

Housing Bureau opens public housing tender to allocate 1,300 or more units

The news that the new tender allowing residents to apply for public housing units has been opened was published yesterday in the Macau government’s Official Gazette by the Housing Bureau (IH). The tender that has been urged by several lawmakers at the Legislative Assembly (AL) for a long time, started as of yesterday and will run for a period of three months (until February 7, 2018). It  aims to allocate at least 1,300 public housing units to the residents currently earning lower incomes.

According to the Chief of the Department of Public Housing of IH, Chan Wa Keong, the number of housing units available on this tender is not very precise and could vary due to several factors. The factors include the fact that some houses are currently  under construction and every year the IH gets back many units previously rented to other tenants.

“We don’t have an exact number for this tender, we have around 1,300 but there might be more as every year we receive back around 400 units for several reasons, some [tenants] do not want to continue to rent social housing units anymore and others do not want to continue to live with their family and also there are some cases of death [of the tenant],” explained Chan.

The housing units are distributed across several buildings in the Macau peninsula, as well as in Taipa and Coloane, with Chan saying that there are some, “in Coloane; we have [some] in the Lok Kuan Building (Seac Pai Van) in Taipa, we also have the Taipa Social housing neighborhood (across Taipa Municipal Market) and Iat Seng Building; and in Macau we have [many units in] different buildings and areas”.

Questioned also by the media during a press conference held yesterday morning at the IH headquarters, Chan noted that the new rules passed at the AL on Tuesday were related to the amendment for the public housing regime, which sets different rules and requirements for these applications and will not interfere in any way with the current tender, which will follow the same rules as those previously held in 2013.

“The new tender of today [yesterday] is not affected because the minimum age is of 18 years,” Chan said, noting the new rules are not yet fully approved and not in place, and will only be able to affect future tenders but not the current one.

According to the IH chief, back in 2013, the Bureau received “around 6,100 application forms which resulted in around 3,800 admitted candidates. From those over 2,500 are lodged in social housing units,” noting that it took about 18 months to complete the allocations of that tender.

During the presentation of the new tender, the chief of the section of public housing from the IH, Chan Kuan Kit, clarified that, “the minimum age for the representative of the household is 18 years old and we have updated both the values of the income and assets [of the household].”

The income and assets are now divided in seven different levels, which will also correspond to several different housing unit typologies, from the minimum of MOP11,470 of monthly income for a household composed by a single person, to a maximum of MOP33,630 for a household of seven or more people. The criteria for eligibility are that the applicants must be Macau permanent residents, who have lived in the region for at least seven years and that none of the household members should have possessed any private property in the last three years (counting from the deadline of the tender). These criteria are in addition to the other rules from the 2013 tender.

Chan reminded the public that there was no need to rush to the IH locations to obtain the forms or even to deliver them back, as it was not a factor that would impact the allocation of housing units. He noted that this year, the staff at IH will be available to help applicants to complete forms so as to avoid mistakes in the applications.

He also informed that people could get the forms at the IH headquarters, in Taipa office or in any of the 40 distribution points. The form and instructions can also be accessed on the IH website and there is a special function that allows applicants to book the most convenient day and time to deliver the application. Such advance booking can be done by phone or through the dedicated webpage, booking.ihm.gov.mo.

The chief of the section of public housing from the IH also recalled that when delivering the form to the IH, all the members of the household need to be physically present and must sign the form.

Crowds rush to apply for public housing

As the new round of applications for public housing began, thousands rushed to the door of the bureau in the early hours of yesterday, queuing up for their turn to collect the forms and instruction leaflets that were being distributed. There were queues at the Housing Bureau headquarters despite the Bureau saying that there was no need to rush to collect the forms.
According to the Chief of the Department of Public Housing of IH, Chan Wa Keong, between 9 and 10.30 a.m., the Bureau staff distributed over 1,400 application forms, just at the IH headquarters. However, it was impossible for Chan to provide the exact numbers as he mentioned, “forms are being distributed in more than 40 different locations and also can be downloaded from our website so it’s difficult to know how many were in fact distributed until now.”