The Habitat-St. Hannibal Housing Project in Pasay City aimed to help four communities living in slum areas in a danger zone from immediate eviction by providing a safe relocation area with decent, affordable shelter.
The project intended to help improve their lives and living conditions, and to sustain their new community through access to livelihood, values formation, a healthy environment, and imbibing a culture of saving towards paying monthly mortgages. These programs were provided by St. Hannibal Empowerment Center (SHEC), a religious organization that nurtured the communities towards self-empowerment, resulting in their formation and registration as a Community Association, thus increasing their bargaining position towards land acquisition.
Habitat for Humanity Philippines undertook the technical aspect by constructing the houses using innovative technology to help reduce the house cost. The housing units were also designed to maximize land use through the construction of two storey walk-up apartment buildings.
The land, a 6,000 square meter foreclosed property of Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) was affordably provided through the bank’s corporate social responsibility program that also allowed its employees to volunteer in helping construct the houses. The City Government of Pasay undertook soil testing and was in charge of site development.
The Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC), a government quasi-financing institution that helps members of the informal sector avail of housing through the community mortgage program, through the representation of the Community Association, financed the land and house construction and provided the loans to allow the construction to proceed.
Other project partners provided livelihood training and offered livelihood opportunities, and financial management training, as well as provided additional funding for the project.
As of June 30, 2008 170 families, once squatters, now have decent homes of their own. By early 2009, all 300 families shall have moved into their new homes.
