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viction could not have come at a worse time for Sri Aswiah as her husband passed away just three months ago and her son lost his job because the car wash where he worked went bankrupt.

To top it all off, the gout she suffered for years has relapsed.

On Monday morning, the city administration deployed dozens of excavators, 400 military personnel, more than 1,000 police officers and 2,000 Jakarta Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers to demolish her house and those of hundreds of others in Pasar Ikan and Luar Batang in North Jakarta.

The eviction was part of the city’s general plan to clear the Pasar Ikan area, including Luar Batang, home to the historic Luar Batang Mosque, claiming that the area was littered with illegal buildings, including homes and kiosks hugging the coastline.

Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama insisted the eviction was necessary as part of flood mitigation efforts.

The city administration then provided the evicted residents with three months of rent-free accommodation in various low-cost rental apartments that include Rusunawa Rawa Bebek in East Jakarta, 29 kilometers from their previous homes.

However, Sri feels that the new place, albeit new and clean, will not give her family a bright future.

Unlike her previous fishermen’s kampung, the new apartment is very quiet and offers no view other than the clueless faces of evicted residents.

Without having a motorcycle or other private vehicle, the 52-year-old woman has no choice but to walk almost 1 kilometer from the rusunawa to the nearest mode of public transportation every time she wants to go to the market to buy daily needs.

“With my relapsing gout, I am not sure how long I can walk like this every day,” she told The Jakarta Post on Monday as she held a small bag of pills she obtained from the rusunawa’s community health center (puskemas).

Sukmaria, 29, said she would have to find another job as the rusunawa was located much farther from her workplace in Ancol, North Jakarta, than her previous place.

With the challenge posed by the distance to the nearest public transportation, Sukmaria has to leave the rusunawa at 3:30 a.m. to reach her office by 7 a.m.

She said no itinerant vegetable sellers entered the apartment area, which meant she had to spent two hours on a round trip to the market.

“The apartment is clearly more luxurious than mine, but it isn’t what I want. I feel like a prisoner here,” she said.

Three of the six towers in Rusunawa Rawa Bebek were reserved for evictees who have moved in since Thursday.

The apartments, however, were not designed for families as all of the units are 26.4-square-meter studio types without a partition separating the bedroom from the living area. Without a dedicated kitchen, the residents have to cook on the rear terrace, where they also hang their laundry.

Ani Suryani, head of the rusunawa, acknowledged that the apartments were not the most suitable place for families as they were designed for single office workers.

“However, they are somewhat better than their previous places. There are even elevators in each tower,” Ani said.

She said in December a new tower with apartments suitable for families would be ready and all of the evictees would be able to move there.

She said she was aware of the access issue, and that she was currently in discussions with PT Transjakarta over the possibility of providing feeder buses from the rusunawa to the nearest Transjakarta bus stop.