Roughly 2,300 dilapidated houses belonging to poor families will be repaired by the end of September with funding from the city, according to Hanoi’s People’s Committee.

The minimum cost of repairing one house is estimated to be around 25 million VND (1,400 USD).

The main support, with a value of 15 million VND (810 USD) per household, will be supplied by the State. It is to help households buy construction materials such as bricks and cement.

The remaining 5 million VND (270 USD) for each house will come from “the Fund for the Poor” and by the households themselves.

Besides this support, poor households are eligible for loans up to a maximum of 8 million VND (430 USD), with a preferential interest rate of 3 percent over 10 years form the Bank for Social Policy.

According to Dao Van Binh, deputy chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, last year, about 4,100 houses received repairs that made a remarkable contribution to helping the poor escape poverty.

My Duc, Thanh Oai and Phu Xuyen were three notable districts that highlighted the success of the project, said Binh.

However, the progress in other districts including Soc Son, Dong Anh, Tu Liem, Ba Vi, Chuong My, Thach That and Me Linh was still low.

“The main reason,” Binh said, “was that the surveys carried out to list and categorise poor households were tardy and not comprehensive. In addition, some poor households faced difficulties in borrowing money from the bank.”

According to a recent survey conducted across Hanoi’s 29 districts, when the poverty-line was raised and the number of poor households increased, there were nearly 3,270 houses in a seriously bad condition, whose poor owners were unable to have them repaired./.