Slum dwellers’ homes in Surakarta to be upgraded

The Jakarta Post, Surakarta, Tue, September 19, 2017

The Surakarta administration plans to rebuild thousands of homes in slums spread across the municipality.

The slums house around 13,000 structures, which have been deemed unfit for habitation.

Saryanto, the residential and land unit head of the Surakarta Housing Agency, said they planned to refurbish the condemned houses in the next five years. The initial deadline was set for 2019.

The project will revamp the floors, roofing and walls.

“There are 40,000 people living in 13,000 condemned houses. The program is aimed at those who own the houses and land they stand on. Illegal settlements built on state land will not be part of the program,” Saryanto said on Tuesday.

The project’s funds will be disbursed through a “city without slum areas” program called Kotaku.

The slum areas in Surakarta are spread across Gilingan, Jebres, Kadipiro, Kedunglumbu, Mojosongo, Nusukan, Sangkrah, Semanggi, Sumber and Pajang districts.

“We will speed up the project within two years. There is a Rp 7.5billion (US$563,000) fund from the central government. It will be enough for the project,” Surakarta Mayor FX Hadi “Rudy” Rudyatmo said.

Besides the fund from the central government, the slum area management project will also use funds from Surakarta’s regional budget, Central Java’s administration budget and the private sector through their corporate social responsibility schemes.


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