By Shahd Alhamdan
Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — The first episode of “Selfie 3”, a Saudi sketch comedy serial, aired on MBC network on Saturday, the first day of Ramadan, caused quite a stir in Saudi society as it enthralled the viewers and attracted reactions from many influential people.
The episode, with the title “My House,” discussed Saudi citizens’ dream of owning houses and became one of the top trending Twitter hashtags in the Kingdom on Saturday.
Many Saudis thanked Nasser Al-Qasabi for highlighting an issue that afflicted most of them — the issue of high rents and difficulties of owning a house.
The episode featured a Saudi citizen’s suffering due to his inability to pay rents and his consequent attempts to change houses every now and then. It also highlights the man’s struggles to reach the Ministry of Housing for a house grant in order to realize his dream of becoming a house owner one day.
According to statistics published in 2015, only 30 percent of Saudi citizens own houses.
In the first quarter of 2017, the Ministry of Housing announced the launch of its first phase of “My House” program. As part of the program, 120,000 housing units in various built-up areas in all over the Kingdom will be allotted to citizens on the bases of their income level and the number of family members, the ministry said.
According to a report published in February, Minister of Housing Majed Bin Abdullah Al-Huqail said his ministry had made plans to make available 1.5 million housing units to citizens in the next five years.
Sana Ali, a Saudi housewife in her 50s, said, “The episode accurately reflected the reality of the Saudi people and what they suffer from. It was a good episode. I love Selfie because the serial always touches our reality.”
Abdullah Khalid said it was a good start for the Selfie season and the topic that they discussed in the first episode touched the daily struggles of most people in the Kingdom, especially the youth, nowadays.
A Saudi woman commented on the Selfie’s hashtag: “Now we are developed because we learned to say a ‘residential product’. We have different names but one impossible dream.”
