Better homes, better lives in SW China

For decades Yang Zuowen and his family have crammed in to a ramshackle house at the foothill of a mountain in Kangning village in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Yang, 65, said that six generations of his family have lived in the wooden hovel, amid a mountainous landscape that is prone to landslides and falling rocks that leave their home in constant danger.

"When it rains the roof leaks," said Yang's daughter Yang Xiuyun. "We want to repair the house, but we just don't have that much money."

Soon the family of six will move into a new house, as part of a government initiative to relocate vulnerable residents in poverty with poor transport, over the next three years.

The campaign will see poverty-stricken families registered get a 60,000 yuan (about 8,600 U.S. dollars) subsidy, while relatively well-off families will get 15,000 yuan, according to local officials. Each family relocating can also apply for a loan of up to 60,000 yuan.

"With the 60,000-yuan subsidy, a 20,000-yuan loan, and another 30,000 yuan that I borrowed from relatives and friends, I am able to build a new house along the river, away from the mountain," Yang said.

In Binchuan County, which administers Kangning, 600 families have left their old houses and moved into new ones, said Yue Lisong, the county Party chief.

Soon more rural residents like Yang will move into new houses, as Yunnan plans to relocate around 1 million rural residents in the next three years, and build 2,838 relocation sites, said Huang Yunbo, director of the provincial poverty-relief office.

Construction of 2,710 sites had started, of which 124 had been completed by October, Huang said.

The central and provincial government spent 9.3 billion yuan on poverty-relief in Yunnan in 2016, an annual increase of 3.23 billion.

"I am just happy that I no longer need to worry about landslides," Yang said. Endi