Ninety Homes for Low-Income Families
Habitat for Humanity Macedonia officially launched the construction work on the first Habitat Settlement in Veles for low-income families. Over the course of the next three years, Habitat will build 90 apartments in 11 separate builds on 4.700 sq.m. The plan for the first year is to build 24 apartments which will become available to the partner families before the settlement is fully completed. The average size of a home is planned to be 52 sq.m., and the complete investment for this settlement will be 2.7 million dollars.
“Our mission is to make sure that every child in the world has a roof over their head. This is the beginning of a huge project in Macedonia, as we had so far only worked on home renovation and financing water supply and sanitation connections. With the Habitat settlement, we are providing homes for more families from Veles that are in need of a decent place to live” – Jonathan Reckford, CEO of HFH International, said at the groundbreaking.
The target group for these homes are young married couples with children, that are economically active, but have low incomes. These families should be living in substandard conditions and have income that does not exceed 75% of the GDP.
“The conditions for getting a home are very acceptable, because the price will be far smaller than the commercial prices, which are at 800 Euros per square meter. The return period is also affordable, because it will be stretched over 20 years” – Zoran Kostov, National Director of HFH Macedonia said.
Kostov explained that Habitat chose Veles based on the support from both the local and the central government in getting the land and announced that future Habitat settlements in other Macedonian cities is also a huge possibility.
At the groundbreaking, Veles Mayor Ace Kocev expressed his enormous gratitude to Habitat Macedonia for choosing to build the first settlement in Veles.
“The Habitat settlement will bring joy to 90 families that are in need of decent housing. This is a big deal for them, but also for this city and the state” – the Mayor of Veles said.
In the past four years, with the help of its programs – The Home Improvement Fund and the Roma Housing Fund - HFH Macedonia has helped more than 300 low-income families in receiving affordable loans for renovating substandard homes.
