A

group of children who were running around in the third floor hallway of the rusunawa (low-cost rental apartments), suddenly stopped when a middle-aged woman shouted at them and ordered them to play in the front yard as she was being made anxious by the shaking caused by their stomping.

'€œI have been doing that lately. I am afraid of the condition of the hallway. It feels like it could collapse any time,'€ Ernita, a resident of the Komaruddin Rusunawa located in Cakung, East Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post recently.

According to her, the building'€™s condition was getting worse every day and she was anxious that eventually it might take its toll on the residents if the building management did not renovate it soon.

Ernita said she has been a tenant in the building since 2013 and she has never seen any renovations whatsoever take place.

Having been built in 2008, the physical shape of the Rusunawa owned by the city administration is far from adequate, with paint peeling off damaged walls and tiles popping off the floor to be found lying scattered about here and there.

Currently more than half of the units in the Rusunawa are inhabited by people who were evicted from their previous neighborhoods.

While the Jakarta administration'€™s plan to evict residents occupying riverbanks does not seem to slowing down, Komaruddin is a perfect example that shows the city administration has yet to provide decent places for evictees before relocating them from their homes.

'€œThe worst part is the leaks in our ceiling. Sometimes dirty water seeps down from the unit above mine. It is really messy,'€ said Ahmad Jaelani, another resident of the Rusunawa.

He added that shortly after moving into his apartment after being evicted from the Ria Rio Reservoir in Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta, two years ago, he had to renovate broken windows and tiles.

According to him, when he removed the tiles he only found sand, no cement, beneath them. '€œNo wonder the tiles popped off,'€ he said.

Jaelani added that he had met building administrators several times to complain about the condition of his apartment. However, none of them offered him a solution. '€œThe only response was when an officer took pictures of the apartment,'€ he continued.

Leaking ceilings were not only found in the apartments, as Frank Rogers Rengrengulu said the Surya Kasih early childhood education center (PAUD), where he works as a teacher, was also affected during rainy season.

Frank said that earlier this year he has to cancel classes for two days as the rain was so heavy it damaged the school'€™s ceiling.

'€œLeaking ceilings can be found in most of the apartments in the building, including my apartment and even this PAUD,'€ he said.

Separately, Ika Lestari Aji, head of the Housing and Administration Building Agency, said the agency had allocated Rp 150 billion (US$11.2 million) to repair seven Rusunawa that need to be renovated, including the Komaruddin Rusunawa. '€œWe have allocated the budget to renovate them in 2016. We will start the project as soon as the budget gets approved,'€ she said.

The other six Rusunawa that will be renovated are the Cibesut Rusunawa in East Jakarta, the Flamboyan Rusunawa in West Jakarta and the Marunda Rusunawa, Penjaringan Rusunawa, Sukapura Rusunawa and Muara Baru Rusunawa in North Jakarta.