Egypt to inaugurate soon alternative housing project for slum dwellers eastern Cairo

CAIRO – 14 May 2021: Cairo Municipal Authority will inaugurate soon an alternative housing project dubbed Al Khayala for slum dwellers eastern Cairo.

The project – worth LE853 million - consists of 42 flat-buildings containing 2,500 fully-furnished apartments. The surface area of each is 60 square meters.

The neighborhood will have a school, a police department, an ambulance center, a healthcare center, a public park, roads stretching over 60,000 meters, landscape, and water and wastewater networks extending over 3,500 meters.

In a similar context, Residents of central Cairo slum area of Batn al-Baqara started to move to new fully-furnished housing units as part of a governmental plan to develop slum areas and provide quality life to residents.

A total of 50 families were transferred to new housing units in the new Asmarat city, where they receive fully-furnished units supported with electronic devices. Cairo governorate also provided means of transportation for residents to transfer their belongings.

As part of the plan, the govenorate removed 43 buildings out of 730 ones to develop this area in Old Cairo.

The residents of this area have suffered for a long time from inadequate housing and lack of services, as 2,000 families are scheduled to move from Batn al-Baqara to Asmarat to improve their livelihood.

This comes as part of the government’s plan to get rid of informal areas, and re-exploit these places to serve the country.

Asmarat is a social housing project offering alternative housing to slum dwellers, granting them fully-furnished residential units.

Egypt has finalized the development of 312 unsafe areas, out of a total of 357, at a cost of L.E. 39 billion. It is scheduled to complete the development of all insecure areas nationwide by mid-2021, and after that, the development phase of the unplanned and informal markets will begin, where a 10-year plan has been set.

In May 2016, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi promised to move all those living in slums to new flats over 3 years as part of an ambitious project expected to cost -then- about LE 14 billion ($790 million); however, the budget was upgraded until reaching LE 38 Billion.

Asmarat social housing project - FILE 

In the same context, the Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) Fund, launched by Sisi in 2014, has been working on a three-phase strategy to eliminate Egypt’s shantytowns and re-house slum residents, including those living in Doueyka, Establ Antar and Ezbet Khair Allah.

Last September, President Sisi urged continuous state efforts and projects to develop unsafe slums in the capital, Cairo, to secure appropriate housing units for citizens, the Egyptian Presidency said.

Developing unsafe areas in all engineering, organizational and environmental aspects aims at improving the humanitarian and housing situation of dwellers of these areas, the President said, as he met with Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli and Housing Minister.