Gov’t Affordable Housing Program Comes to Yehudah and Shomron

YERUSHALAYIM
Israeli soldiers seen on security patrol near Kiryat Arba. Photo by Nati Shohat/FLASH90
Israeli soldiers seen on security patrol near Kiryat Arba. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

The State has for the first time issued a tender for construction of affordable homes for young couples in Yehudah and Shomron. The “Price Resident” program tender issued for Kiryat Arba Wednesday will see 42 homes built in the Givat Charsina neighborhood of the town, and, sources told Globes, similar tenders will be offered in the future for other locations in Yehudah and Shomron, including Maaleh Adumim, Ariel and other locations.

Under the Price Resident program, builders promise to provide a percentage of homes in a project that will be affordable and set aside for qualified families who do not own homes. The program, developed by Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon, is a central strategy of the government’s efforts to reduce the cost of housing.

Kachlon, who is not considered particularly right-wing, said in a speech last week that Jewish towns in Yehudah and Shomron needed to be treated just like communities in “Israel proper” – from all perspectives. Responding to the murder of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, Hy”d, last week, Kachlon said that “it is important to make clear to the murderers that the future of Jewish settlement in Yehudah and Shomron will be decided by negotiations, not violence. We have no choice but to build now, and to build a great deal.

“I have demanded that the prime minister end the building freeze in Yerushalayim, where there has been a ‘quiet freeze’ that has caused many young couples to seek other places to live,” said Kachlon. “We freeze, they incite, we freeze, they murder.”

Earlier this week, the government announced that 800 new housing units would be built in the Yerushalayim neighborhoods of Ramot, Gilo and Har Choma, as well as in Maaleh Adumim and Kiryat Arba. Of the total, 560 homes will be built in Maaleh Adumim, 240 in Ramot, and several dozen in Gilo and Kiyat Arba each.

Speaking at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that “we will make special efforts to strengthen the Jewish areas, and we will develop special plans for Kiryat Arba. I am instructing the ministers in all offices to quickly and efficiently execute their parts of the plan in order to enhance Jewish towns in Yehudah and Shomron.”

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