Social housing is a term that has various variations such as public housing,
affordable housing, and low-income housing. It was born in 1945 with the initial name of
public housing but in Vietnam, it just has mentioned officially in legal documents since
2005. To date, this terminology has become popularly for residents, especially lowincome
households because Vietnam is facing to the severe shortage of housing,
including housing for low-income individuals and families as a result of intensive influx
of immigration from rural to metropolitan areas. To solve this problem, the government
of Vietnam has recently promulgated a series of policies with great incentives in order to
call for investors to construct more social housing for the low-income households. There
is no doubt that social housing policy has becoming one of the leading priority policies in
Vietnam, these days.
The birth of social housing policy in Vietnam, although later than other countries
in the region and the world, shows the government‘s efforts in ensuring and meeting the
demands for housing of the residents. Regarding social housing policy of Vietnam, there
are several questions which are needed to be addressed as follows: (1) Even though social
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housing policy of Vietnam has been revised and amended many times by the government
and other ministries over past two years, whether that policy is really perfect or not, to
date. If social housing policy is really imperfect, in other words it still contains
inadequacies, in this case which inadequacies need to be remedied? (2) There are various
reasons for current inadequacies of social housing policy of Vietnam, among them which
reasons are the most important? (3) In order to remedy current inadequacies of social
housing policy, what are solutions for them? This in-depth study, in accordance with
answering the above questions, will examine and assess the Vietnam‘s social housing
policy based on current legal documents with an ultimate aim to find out imperfections
and inadequacies to remedy them. Moreover, this paper also studies experiences of three
countries namely Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand which have gained noticeable
achievements in developing social housing model over the past years. Based on analysis
and assessments, this study will give valuable lessons that Vietnam can consider and
apply to its reality.
In order to achieve the purpose as mentioned, the analytical (data) and
comparative methodologies will be used. By these methodologies, some inadequacies
that are seen as one of the main contents of this study will be indicated such as limited
beneficiaries by social housing policy, few housing policies for young generation, and the
shortage of urban infrastructures within social housing projects. Thereby, it is essential to
perfect and remedy these inadequacies by expanding the scope of beneficiaries, enacting
more policies targeting to young generation, promulgating policies to enhance the
development of social infrastructures within social housing projects, and amending
regulations on housing finance to help demanded people to access social housing estates.
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Specifically, instead of providing social housing dwellings to some specific groups in
terms of cadres, civil servants, public employees, officers, professional army forces,
workers, students, and low-income households in urban areas, the government should
facilitate vulnerable groups in the society including the elderly, disabilities, and retired
people to access to social housing units. Additionally, it is worthy to give young
generation more assistance in accessing this kind of affordable housing estates.
Furthermore, the government should also develop social infrastructures, including
kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and entertainment centers within social housing projects
to improve the residents‘ quality of life. These are crucial suggestions for perfecting and
remedying social housing policy in the following period.