Elderly people have praised a project to add lifts to housing in the Jiangxi Province.
The first lift will be installed in a six-story building which was built in 2003 in Zhanqian Community, Nanchang City.
Zheng Renai, an 83-year-old resident who lived on the fourth floor, said: “It’s troublesome every time when I struggled to walk downstairs because of my lame leg, it is favourable to people like me if the elevator is finished being installed.”
There are many elderly people who have limited mobility like Mr Zheng living in the building, most of them have said that the new lift will make their daily lives easier.
Sun Aimin, 51, one of the residents, said he contacted all residential families looking for advice and accepted a commission of choosing himself as the project initiator.
Sun said: “Finally 11 of the 12 occupants gave consent to the development plan and signed an agreement,
“According to the agreement, those who live above the third floor that wishes to use the elevator need to finance the installation together. However, only six families among them were willing to pay the charge.
“For this reason, we have a significant funding gap.”
They have raised 200,200 RMB, those who live on higher floors paid more money than low and mid-rise residents. Families who lived on the uppermost floor pay up to 16,000 and 6,000 RMB but is still not enough.
Sun added: “ Fortunately the project is subsidized by the government and community, which respectively provided 40,000 and 30,000 RMB.”
Now the transportation of engineering equipment had finished and the work on the steel frame that will eventually support the elevator is underway, the estimated completion date would be in July.
Ling Zhi, 32, Party Secretary of the community highlighted that they will continue to provide more assistance installing elevators for residents who have demands through the opinion survey.
“Many other provinces have started up their plans of old house reconstruction, Jiangxi will no exception introduce more specific policies continuously following the guidance released by The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.”
