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Dozens of Kampung Pulo evictees at risk of losing new homes
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Resident of Menteng Pulo Cemetery collect their belonging out of the rubble after a neighborhood clearance in Jakarta, on April 7. Kampung Pulo evictees have said that several residents are about to again face eviction as they are unable to pay rental fees. (The Jakarta Post/Seto Wardhana)
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t least 40 families evicted from Kampung Pulo that were provided low-cost rental apartments (rusunawa) in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, are at risk of loosing their new homes as they have failed to pay the rental fees, several residents have said.
“As far as I know, there are 40 apartments in this rusunawa that are at risk of, or have received the sealing order from the management,” said Irfan, one of the evictees, on Monday.
Most of the residents of those apartments, he continued, have lost their jobs so they could not afford to pay the rent as well as the water and electricity costs. On average, each family in the building had to pay about Rp 600,000 per month.
In August last year, the Jakarta city administration forcefully evicted 1,041 families from the flood-prone Kampung Pulo on the banks of the Ciliwung River as part of a plan to widen' the river from 20 meters to 50 meters.
An estimated 500 families agreed to move to the rusunawa. According to Irfan, the rusunawa management agreed not to charge the evictees anything for the first three months. Starting December 2015, the evictees had to pay Rp 300,000 per month, only for rent.
Gugun, another evictee, said during an interview in February that most of the evictees had lost their income sources. In their old dense settlement at Kampung Pulo, they could run businesses to make a living by selling food or other stuff in grocery stalls.
Now, the rusunawa management only allowed the residents to open kiosks on the building’s second floor. The kiosk owner had to compete with each others to win the limited customers in the apartment building, he added.
Gugun, who lives with two families in his 30-square-meter room in the Jatinegara Barat rusunawa, said he also found it hard to make a stable income. As a freelance electrician, he could not get as many jobs as when he lived in Kampung Pulo.
“That is why I prefer to go back to my hometown in Bogor, but I have no money. The Jakarta city administration said we will get 25 percent compensation of NJOP [the taxable value of property] later when the widening of the Ciliwung River is 75 percent complete,” he said.
Sandyawan Sumardi, the leader of NGO Sanggar Ciliwung Merdeka, which advocates for riverbank dwellers, said several Kampung Pulo evictees had come to consult with him about the problem in their new home in the apartment building.
“About three weeks ago, five evictees came to see me, saying that they couldn’t afford to pay the rental fees in the rusunawa. Hence, they intended move back to their relatives' houses around Kampung Pulo,” he said on April 1. (vps/ags)
