TARGET: 60,000 homeless families, P900 Million collection for 2020

By ROGER M. BALANZA

As the immobilizing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic takes a heavy toll on capability of government agencies to implement programs and projects, the Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC) Advisory Council held a 5-day planning session to map out plans and strategies to achieve its performance targets for year 2020.

With face-to-face gatherings outlawed by mandated health protocols to avoid spread of the coronavirus disease, the planning session was conducted in virtual mode on August 2-7, 2020 by members of the Advisory Council.

Like other government agencies hobbled by COVID-19 in delivering services, SHFC , tasked with implementing the government’s socialized housing program, has to develop innovative strategies so as not to hamper its mission to deliver housing to the country’s homeless poor.

On top of the Advisory Council virtual planning session were the agency’s projected delivery of housing units for 60,000 families and collection target of P900 Million for 2020.

Done ahead of the 32nd anniversary on August 19 of the Community Mortgage Program (CMP), SHFC’s flagship program that provides long-term, low-interest housing loans to organized community/homeowners associations, the planning session also tackled continuing initiatives to push signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the country’s Local Government Unit (LGUs) that calls for partnership and funding assistance in the implementation of the socialized housing programs of the LGUs.

To date, SHFC has signed MOUs/MOAs, in virtual settings, with more than a dozen LGUs,