Housing support
By 2025, about 230,000 poor households in rural areas would be provided with housing supports so that they would have safe and stable homes, gradually improve their living standards and sustainably escape hunger and poverty.
These are targets set in a draft decision on housing support for poor households during 2021-25 to be issued by the Prime Minister.
As per the draft, the central budget would support VND 40 million (USD 1,700) for each new house and VND 20 million (USD 850) for each repaired house. In addition, poor households might receive additional support from local administrations and communities.
If wishing to borrow loans to build or repair houses, a poor household would borrow at most VND 25 million (USD 1,100) from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies with the interest rate of 3 percent per year. The maximum loan term would be 15 years, including a grace period of five years. The borrower would have to repay its loan within 10 years with the annual payable amount equaling 10 percent of the loan.
Households eligible for support policies are those certified as poor households according to multidimensional poverty standards specified in Government Decree 07 of 2021. Particularly for cases of splitting a household into two or more separate households, the period from the time of splitting to the effective time of the decision must be at least five years.
The order of priority would be households in especially difficult circumstances; households with a member being a social policy beneficiary; households in disaster-prone areas; and households living in areas with particularly difficult conditions; and other poor households.
Free-of-charge tablets and telecoms services for online study
In addition to housing support, poor households and households living in near poverty would be entitled to free-of-charge tablets and public-utility telecoms services.
Under a draft circular formulated by the Ministry of Information and Communications to guide the implementation of the Program on provision of public-utility telecommunications services through 2025 issued by the Prime Minister under Decision 2269 of 2021, eligible subjects are poor or near-poverty households that have at least one member currently studying at general education institutions and have not yet received desktops, laptops, tablets or other devices serving online study under other programs, schemes or projects.- (VLLF)
