Cheap home loans will help displaced people

A middle-aged woman covered in flies is using a hose to wash her clothes in a blue plastic bucket. It rests on a pile of dried cement parked next to a rubbish dump in front of the former Jamhuri, or “Republic” newspaper office in the capital, Baghdad. “There is no water inside and no electricity,” Khariya Kathem Ramadan, 60, complained to IRIN, scrubbing her laundry against the cement as the flies buzz around her hands. “We have nothing here, not even a door to lock or walls to keep out the cold.” One of several of the former regime’s offices, the state-run newspaper's building was burned and looted when US-led forces came into Iraq in April 2003. Families kicked out of their houses by landlords who quickly raised their rents or by property disputes between Kurds and Arabs, fled to places like the newspaper office and other public buildings around the country. Families often pay money to groups such as criminal gangs to purchase space, even though the buildings are owned by the government. In recent months, the police have started forcing families out of some of the buildings, but their number seems to be rising. “When my husband was killed during the looting, I couldn’t pay the rent for my house in western Baghdad,” Ehifat Ali, 47, told IRIN. She lives with her seven children in the three-storey building. “We tried to find better conditions to live in, but all we could find was this place." People like Ramadan and Ali are prime candidates for a new interest-free home loan Omar Farouq al-Damluji, Minister of Housing and Construction, expects to unveil in three weeks. Ministry officials will distribute parcels of government land to people who have none, based on a point system, then give them a small mortgage of about US $400 to build homes on the land, al-Damluji told IRIN. The money can be paid back interest-free within a two-year period, after which the interest rates start at 1 percent and increase every year, he said. “We want people to feel they are buying the land themselves rather than getting it for free, so that no one will be able to confiscate it,” Damluji said. “Many people say the places where they are living now were offered to them and then someone tries to kick them out.” Iraq will use a lending system created to help poor people buy homes in the US, al-Damluji said. The government will subsidise the money it loans to people for two years, he said. Interest cannot usually be charged on money at banks based on traditional Islamic beliefs. An estimated 64,000 plots of government land are ready to be distributed, al-Damluji said. Families whose police force husbands were killed will be first on the list, followed by people who have been removed from their homes since the fall of the former regime by others trying to return back, followed by those who could not afford their rents anymore, he said. Local officials estimate that some 300,000 housing units are needed to meet demands. “Demand will always be higher than what we can offer - that’s why I think it’s best to give people their own money. They can buy their own building materials and work to build their own houses,” al-Damluji said. Recently married, Ali Jawad Katham, 25, told IRIN he liked the mortgage plan. He and his wife Sabree, 20, still live with his family, as many young couples do in Iraq, but he is looking for a new home. “I could pay it back, since I work in the market carrying goods. I make a good salary, I just need a chance to find a house or to build one,” Katham said. A surge in violence in Iraq has slowed down some projects, but local contractors are still at work most days, al-Damluji said. All contracts signed with international firms are on hold after some foreigners were abducted and others left the country, he added. Local guards watch the building sites. In addition, the ministry is building new apartments in several cities around the country to try to deal with the huge number of displaced people, al-Damluji said. A complex in Baghdad’s suburbs slated to be finished about a year from now looks so nice, however, that workers talk about it being reserved for government officials. About $4 million is going into the housing project. Other housing is being built in northern Iraq - in Mosul and Kirkuk; and Balad, just north of Baghdad; and in southern Iraq in Karbala and Najaf. Some of those returning from neighbouring countries will also be included in the plan. According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 11,100 Iraqi refugees returned since last July (2003), mainly from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. The UN refugee agency is not encouraging the returns due to insecurity, but facilitates convoys in cooperation with the Iraqi authorities for those insisting on return. Ministry workers are also turning some previous public buildings into housing units, al-Damluji said. They are working with private property owners to find other affordable housing options, he said. Money for all of the projects is coming from Iraqi crude oil sales.