R

esidents of Kapuk in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, have expressed satisfaction with their newly completed kampung deret (village of row houses), calling it a vast improvement in what was previously a slum prone to flooding.

Kapuk is one of 26 neighborhoods in Jakarta that were rebuilt and improved last year with assistance from the city administration.

A community unit (RW) head in the area, Nurohmad, said that his residents were grateful to leave their old quality of life behind.

'€œThe completion of the kampung deret has given us a chance to start a new life without having to move to a new place. Our neighborhood is now a clean and perfectly decent place to live,'€ Nurohmad said in his home on Thursday.

Last year, after Kapuk residents were told of the city'€™s plan to construct kampung deret houses in slums, they quickly assembled and drafted proposals with the help of a contractor hired by each household.

The contractors would calculate the width of the houses in order to determine how much funding was needed for renovation.

The contractors began work in November after funds were disbursed. Residents either slept at a nearby mosque or set up a tent on a vacant lot while their houses were being renovated.

After seven months, more than 200 kampung deret houses in Kapuk were finished.

The 50-year-old Nurohmad said that residents had been suffering before the kampung deret was built in the neighborhood.

'€œOur houses were lower than the surface of the nearby Angke River. Every rainy season, our houses would be inundated. Children would get ill and parents wouldn'€™t have time to go to work because they had to take care of their children and their homes,'€ he said.

Nurohmad also said their new homes were higher than the river so they would be safe from flooding next rainy season.

Another Kapuk kampung deret resident, 35-year-old Jeni, echoed Nurohmad.

'€œI'€™m very satisfied with the results. We now live in a clean neighborhood. Also, the houses are very colorful, so it makes the residents happy,'€ Jeni said.

Though most residents were satisfied, five houses remain unfinished due to a funding shortfall due to miscalculations by the contractors, who underestimated the project'€™s cost in the budget it sent to the city.

'€œFive houses cannot continue construction because the funds given by the government are not enough. This was a technical mistake,'€ said Nurohmad.

An owner of one of the unfinished houses, Minarsih, said that she was still waiting for a government official to come to the neighborhood so she could lodge her complaint.

'€œAlthough my house is still unfinished, I will not go to the government to fix the mistake. I will wait for them to come,'€ the 48-year-old said.

However, Minarsih, who currently lives in the unfinished house, says that she is still grateful.

'€œLiving in this unfinished house is still a better than what I was living in before,'€ she said. (dwa)