Minister Kurum: We will launch a new social housing project that will cover all 81 provinces.

The Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, answered the questions of the members of parliament after the budget discussions of the Ministry and its affiliated institutions for the year 2025 in the TBMM Planning and Budget Commission.

Minister Kurum stated that the claim of CHP Istanbul Deputy Gokan Zeybek that "the ministry's budget cannot build earthquake housing" does not reflect the truth. He explained that AFAD allocated 492 billion 873 million TL to the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in 2024, and that all of this funding was used for the construction of earthquake housing. Minister Kurum continued: "This claim is absolutely not true. Earthquake housing is not only built with our ministry's budget. We are evaluating those who are entitled through AFAD and those who are not through our Urban Transformation Directorate to ensure that our citizens are not victimized. Therefore, the budget related to earthquake housing is transferred from the central budget to AFAD, and from AFAD directly to our Ministry. In urban transformation areas, the budget is also covered by our Ministry."

NEW SOCIAL HOUSING PROJECT FOR 81 PROVINCES

Minister Kurum also shared the details of the new social housing project for which he announced good news in the morning session of the budget: "By the end of 2025, we will launch a new social housing project covering all 81 provinces. This will be in all 81 provinces. This is particularly relevant for our tenant citizens in the earthquake zone. We will continue to create new social housing projects for citizens who do not own homes and are genuinely struggling to buy a house, especially those with low income levels, just as we did with the 1 million 462 thousand social housing we built before."

MY FIRST HOME LAND AND MY FIRST BUSINESS CONTINUE

Minister Kurum emphasized that the First Home First Business Project is also ongoing: "We have not forgotten any of the promises we made in election rallies for the past 22 years. Together, we have put forth a struggle exceeding 100 billion dollars due to this disaster affecting 14 million citizens in 11 provinces. Despite all these difficulties, we will continue with our projects. The construction of all our 50 thousand and 100 thousand social housing units is actively ongoing in the field. We have completed some and delivered them to our citizens. Again, did the First Home Land project stop? It did not stop; we collected our requests in 694 districts under that project, and we will complete the allocation processes by July 2025. Similarly, in the First Business Project, we are carrying out 40 projects in various provinces and districts across Turkey, and we will continue to keep our promises in this scope just as we do in our other projects.