CRI听力:Few Public Rental Houses Occupied

Public rental apartment are built mainly for lower- or middle-income urban families who have difficulties affording a place to live.

Wuhan's first public rental apartment are comprised of two residential quarters. One has nearly 400 apartments, although none is occupied yet. The other with about 500 apartments only has about 200 occupied units.

The situation is similar in other cities such as Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Jinan. High rents are generally blamed as the main reason for the situation. In Wuhan, only those with a average income under 2500 per capita is able to apply to public rental apartment. Zhang Jianlin, a Wuhan resident explains how much he need to pay for the rent:

"We have to pay over 5,000 yuan in total for the first payment. After that, we still have to pay over 2,000 yuan every three months. The government gives each household a quarterly allowance of only 720 yuan which is a far cry from the sum."

Besides high rent, Wen Huiqin, a tenant of public rental apartments in Hongshan District, says inconvenient location is another disadvantage. The first quarter of Wuhan's pilot public rental project, though close to downtown, only has two bus routes available, which makes commuting very difficult.

"Kids have to take a long trip to get to school. My son has to walk for half an hour from home to the bus stop, and even adults need at least 20 minutes. It usually takes half an hour for a bus ride to the school, but sometimes it can be as long as one hour when there's a traffic jam. My son is sure to be late again this morning. He was late for school twice last week."

Some experts suggest that public rental apartments be planned together with public transport and service facilities.

Chen Jie, professor with the center of housing policy studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, calls for different types of public rental apartments to be built and expanded, for example, in combination with dormitories to meet the needs of residents with different income levels.

Apart from these measures, some local governments have begun to lower the stringent requirements for applications for public rental apartment. The Housing Administration Department of Hongshan District in Wuhan recently decided to ease restrictions on special migrant workers such as sanitation employees by making them eligible as long as they pay social insurance in the district and have a city residence permit.

The department has also decided to lift restrictions on per capita income by raising the monthly per capita income standard from below 2,500 yuan to below 3,500 yuan.

Public rental apartment are a type of affordable housing, which refers to units with set standards, prices and rentals provided by the governments for families with low and middle incomes. The various types of affordable housing include public rental apartment, low-rent houses, economically affordable houses and fixed-price commercial apartments.

About 10 million affordable housing units were built last year in China, and 5 million more will be completed this year. The construction of another 7 million new units will also begin this year.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.