Validation on ‘Yolanda’ housing occupants

‘They should give a satisfying justification. Imagine these houses were awarded way back in 2017 and it has already been seven years’

TACLOBAN CITY — The Tacloban City government is conducting another round of validation among occupants in the “Yolanda” housing projects amid reports that many of them are not the original beneficiaries but either renters or have bought the rights from the original occupant.

The city government also issued a new warning to the beneficiaries who are not occupying their units that they will lose their rights and will consider their houses as abandoned to be raffled off to those who also applied for houses.

Leonard Tedence Jopson, community affairs officer at the Tacloban City Housing and Community Development Office (TCHCDO), said second notices have already been sent out to the beneficiaries who are not occupying their houses asking them to explain why their houses should not be forfeited.

At least 2,000 housing units in the different “Yolanda” permanent relocation sites are reportedly without occupants, some of them were turned into virtual hideouts of teenagers where they indulge in vices such as drug use, smoking, drinking and premarital sex away from parental supervision.

Jopson said housing beneficiaries are given three notices — the first round was issued in 2021 — to explain before they forfeit their houses.

“They should give a satisfying justification. Imagine these houses were awarded way back in 2017 and it has already been seven years,” Jopson said.

In one resettlement site — called Villa Sofia — around 180 houses out of over 500 units appear abandoned without an occupant. Even in the occupied units, many dwellers are neither the original beneficiaries nor relatives of the beneficiary.

He said some occupants showed the staff conducting the monitoring waiver signed by the original beneficiary indicating that they are no longer interested in occupying the house.

“This cannot be rented out or transferred to another person because this is a grant for those who lose their houses during ‘Yolanda,’” Jopson said.

But while many houses remain unoccupied, Jopson said the TCHCDO is swamped with applications for housing units from interested individuals who want to avail of the “Yolanda” permanent housing units.

Jopson said the local housing board scrutinizes these applications to ensure that they are qualified beneficiaries — meaning they are residents of Tacloban City.