ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Ayman al-Babi, 36, paid three million Syrian Pounds ($428) to rent a house in the al-Hamdaniya neighborhood of Aleppo for the next six months. He fears living in his own house due to the earthquake hit Syria and Turkey on Feb. 6.
Ayman rented a two-room apartment in a four-story building to shelter himself and his family.
His old building in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood nearly collapsed, sustaining major damage following the earthquake.
“When it rains, it pours,” al-Babi said, “Since the first day of the earthquake, my house became unsuitable for living. The General Safety Committee said the residential building that I live in was deemed uninhabitable and marked it for demolition, so I left.”
He and his family spent the first night after the earthquake in a public park. Thus began a tiresome search to rent a house in the western neighborhoods of the city. “I hardly managed to find two rooms on the ground floor of a building in al-Hamdaniya neighborhood, as most units are rented out for large sums. My house’s monthly rent is 500.000 SYP ($71),” he added.
“At first, I was asked to pay six million, or a year’s worth of rent, but I could only pay three million after I sold some of my wife’s gold jewelry, so I rented it for six months only.”
Lost Hope
The young man has lost hope of returning to his former home. “It is something forgotten now,” al-Babi noted, adding that the idea that the government will rebuild what it demolished is far from being realized. What makes it worse is that no one provided him and his family with any aid, as most people seek shelter in schools and mosques, or resort to public parks or the open street.
He heard that the government is relocating those affected to areas surrounding Aleppo. “These solutions do not ease our suffering; we lost everything we had in this disaster,” he said.
He asked the government “to compensate us rather than throw us in temporary housing and displacement camps.” The people lost hope and resorted to “renting a house as a short-term solution until we find a way out of this problem caused by the earthquake.”
On Feb. 18, an exclusive source in Aleppo Governorate told North Press that the devastating earthquake caused the collapse of 60 buildings in Aleppo, whereas the City Council demolished 170 at-risk buildings until Feb. 17.
So far, the number of evacuated buildings has reached about 300 high-risk buildings, according to the source.
On Feb. 10, the Syrian government declared the governorates of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, and Idlib ‘disaster zones’ following the earthquake.
Senseless Numbers
For nine days, Abdulkarim has been looking for a house to rent. So far, he has had no luck finding a residence that suits his income.
Abdulkarim Masas, 42, from the Salaheddine neighborhood, lives with his wife and four children in a school building.
Masas, a government employee in Aleppo’s Directorate of Education, said, “Living in a school is not a solution, it is more like an excruciating homelessness.” His residential building turned to dust following the earthquake.
He keeps looking for rental houses. “There is a great inconceivable demand for houses in unaffected neighborhoods by the earthquake, such as al-Hamdaniya, Halab al-Jadida, Shahba, al-Furqan, and others.”
These neighborhoods were already known for their exorbitant rents before the earthquake, “not to mention now, after the earthquake and as many people from neighborhoods with at-risk buildings or with many collapsed ones are seeking shelter,” he said.
The employee went on talking about house rents reaching “senseless” numbers in the city. “There are houses rented for seven million SYP ($1.000) per year and others for 10 million SYP ($1.428).”
He wondered, “How can I lease a house with such a rent when my monthly salary does not exceed 140.000 SYP ($20)? It is not enough to stay in a house but for a few days.”
He believes that if there had been actual help from the government and price-controls or a temporary raise in their meager salaries, people could recover from “this catastrophe and perhaps be less miserable in shelters.”
Raif Hussein, 58, a real estate agent, justified the rise in house rents saying, “Aleppo already faced housing problems. Many houses were destroyed in the war, and large-scale displacement happened from the countryside to the city. Hence there was always great demand for houses.”
After the earthquake, “the western neighborhoods were more in demand, leading to a 50-70 percent rise in rents that are expected to increase, especially since many shelters, such as mosques and schools, will be evacuated and those affected relocated to housing units in the Aleppo countryside and its suburbs, leaving many people with the option of renting a house.”