Housing challenges: Any aspiring politician talking about it?

Housing issues in Port Moresby is an old story.

Many working class families budget are hard hit by rentals and the consequence is the take home pay is very low despite a possibly higher salary than average Papua New Guinean.

The minimum wage rate is K3.50 per hour.

Rentals in Port Moresby average around K3,000 to K4,000 per month for a decent three bedroom apartment or house.

If you earn K80,000 per annum as your gross salary.

Forty percent of that (K32,000) can go to rentals as salary sacrifice.

Your salary would be around K48,000 but it seems there would be shortfall so you'd have to pluck another K4,000 from your salary to meet your rental for the year if it was at K3,000 per month.

But on a serious note, not many people earn around K80,000 per annum.

Rentals have soared exponentially during the construction period of the PNG LNG project pushing many average income earners in public and private sector to "bunk up" or stressfully rent a room in settlements or illegal buildings around town at rates of K300 to K500 per fortnight.

That was even the case pre-LNG construction so we were into this doldrum, an already depressing situation well before.

Imagine the rates mentioned were just at a rate for a room, not a whole house where one would call home.

The government has been called on to look into housing issues but I rather think the private sector should also help in alleviating this.

Many city residents who make this city function also live in settlements.

Many contribute to making thousands or millions for companies that allow their managers to live in posh locations.

It's time to make sure, everyone is equally afforded a decent housing to be regarded a home, make families happy that they have space.

Elections and we hardly hear candidates talk about how they are addressing housing issues.

The working class must ask about this.

If they have not, I am asking through this medium.

Did any candidate for the Moresby Northwest by-election highlight what he or she would do to address this.

Housing and settlement expansions are big challenges for the city that must be addressed appropriately and gradually now or we face a problem in future.

Alarm bells have already sounded that we have a problem.

Please address housing woes and bring rentals down.

If we cannot do this, we got to increase wage rate so residents can afford to live in a decent place that is truly expensive.