Eleven landlords, who treated their boarders well, were praised and presented commendations by the HCM City People’s Committee June 28. The commendations were awarded at a meeting held by the Managing Board of Industrial Zones and Export and Processing zones in the city June 29.

Deputy standing secretary of the City’s Party Committee Nguyen Van Dua pays a visit to the home of a landlord on the morning of June 28

Forty-one other landlords also received certificates of commendations from the board.

The meeting was aimed at stimulating more businesses and individuals to invest in building more rental accommodation, as well as encourage landlords to improve their services.

At the meeting, a number of landlords were invited to tell the audience about what they had done to help workers when they were in need. Their stories touched many of those attending.

Honoring the landlords, Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, deputy chairwoman of the city’s People’s Committee, on behalf of the city’s municipal government, said, “You can all be recognized as spiritual fathers or mothers of the workers. We highly appreciate your good deeds.”

Talking about her charity in dealing with tenants, mostly low-income workers, Doan Thi Mai, owner of a boarding house in Binh Tan District, said, “Just a few months ago, early one morning, I heard a scream coming from a room of a worker, whose name was Thin, and who was seven months pregnant. I immediately ran to her room and found that she was suffering from severe convulsions.”

Ms Mai immediately called a taxi to take Thin to the hospital. As Thin had no relatives with her, Ms Mai had to take care of Thin during the time she was hospitalized. Thin underwent an operation and she and her baby were both saved.

Ms Mai said, “I’ve regarded all the workers living in my boarding house as brothers and sisters if they are as old as me, or my nephews or nieces, as they are of the same age as my children. “

Nearly 80 workers have stayed in the Mai’s boarding house ever since it was built. Many fondly call Ms Mai, “Mummy Nam.” Nam is a nickname of Mai.

Ms Mai said that she always offers renters a free week’s rent to look for jobs. She always shares the weight of difficulties of the workers by giving them some medicines, a bag of sugar, some eggs or a can of condensed milk when they fall sick.

During the Tet holidays, aside from exempting workers from water and electricity bills, Ms Mai gives them cooking oil, sugar, MSG, candies and cookies so that they can take them home as gifts to their families.

While other landlords from time to time raise the rent due to the increasing costs of living, Ms Mai has also kept the prices unchanged for six years now.

Ms Mai said, “Other landlords think that I’m dumping prices, but in fact, I just want to share the difficulties with the workers while their incomes are too low to survive on.”

Dang Van Huong is the owner of a boarding house in District 7, which is a shelter for more than 100 workers.

Not only does he charge the workers reasonable rent, Mr Huong has also built a large bookcase and filled it with dozens of books, so that “the workers can have something to read at weekends or on holidays for entertainment.”

On important events like Tet and other big holidays, Mr Huong always gives gifts worth between VND100,000 and 150,000 to every renter.

Speaking at the meeting, Vu Van Hoa, head of the Managing Board of Export and Processing Zones and Industrial Zones said, “The demand for boarding houses by workers in HCM City is growing, as more and more people from other cities and provinces are flocking to the city to look for jobs.”

He pointed out that the current total number of workers working for export and processing zones and industrial zones is over 250.000, 70 percent of them are immigrant workers.

Since 2006, the city has built 6,000 boarding houses for workers, meeting just three percent of the demand. The remaining workers have to rent houses to live in. The number of landlords in the city is 18,364 providing 413,272 lodging places for workers.

Ms. Thu Ha said that the only solution to meet the increasing demand of boarding houses for workers is to encourage more city residents to take part.

She also requested municipal authorities to outline incentive policies to encourage more real estate companies and individuals to invest in building more boarding houses.

The board has proposed to work with the Department of Planning and Architecture on new designs in which part of industrial land in the zones will be used for building boarding houses, cultural houses, medical stations, schools and kindergartens for workers and their children.