HOUSING SUMMIT. Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno (left) talks about the upcoming 'Housing Summit' Thursday (June 16, 2022). The summit is slated on June 22 to present frameworks on urban development and settlements. (PNA photo by Nef Luczon)
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A housing summit is set to open here on June 22 with a focus on key issues in urban housing and interventions for homeless families, officials said Thursday.
Ermin Stan Pimentel, head of the city housing urban development department, said in the last two summits of the city government, they gathered insights into the current state of low-cost housing for the underprivileged.
“What the mayor (Oscar Moreno) has been saying, it's about institutionalization. To institutionalize the system of emancipation, that indeed in Cagayan de Oro we not only give them houses but the security of tenure,” Pimentel said in a press briefing.
Pimentel noted that social concerns were raised in the previous summit, with the local government expressing concern about providing child development centers and other basic services accessible to housing settlements.
In the upcoming summit, he said speakers are expected to provide focus on urban development, informal settlers' families and population; land use and affordable housing; and sustainable resettlement to stakeholders.
Meanwhile, Moreno, said this city and Davao City have seen high percentages of migration where rural residents in nearby provinces settle in the highly urbanized areas.
As the population is noticeably expanding, Moreno said there is a need to "capacitate" cities, especially in constructing low-cost and affordable housing.
“The migration is also rising, and some informal settlers are becoming a (collective) problem. We need to learn to have resettlement programs,” he said. (PNA)
