Building affordable homes

Shelter is a basic human need, and operations that promote a housing sector capable of supplying adequate shelter to the population are fundamental goals of government’s social development strategy.

Thus, well-designed policies supporting the production and consumption of housing services have significant impact on development. Not only do they promote the expansion of the construction industry, they increase the welfare of the population, particularly the poor, by improving living conditions and expanding their physical needs--The Housing Market in Ghana, Research Department, Bank of Ghana.

Over the years, successive governments have formulated direct intervention policies with the views to providing affordable housing for the populace. Generally, affordable housing deals with housing solutions that are priced and financed in such a way that it is possible for low-income households to also satisfy their other basic needs.

Government recently introduced a national housing policy with the overall goal of providing adequate, safe and decent affordable housing that is accessible and sustainable with infrastructural facilities, using the private sector as a driving force and the government as a facilitator or partner. The vision of government is that everyone is able to access safe, secure, decent and affordable housing either owned or rented.

Efforts

In recent times the State partnered the private sector to construct 5,000 affordable housing units, and the first phase branded “Nyame Dua” Estate of 240 units is completed for occupation. The stalled government affordable housing project at Borteyman in the Greater Accra Region and Asokore Mampong in Kumasi which were handed over to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) for completion is expected to deliver a total of 1,478 housing units to house about 4,500 people at Borteyman while that of Asokore Mampong will provide 1,030 housing units. Also underway are the Ghana- OAS Brazil 5,000 affordable housing project at Saglemi, Ningo and GoG-Sethi Reality 5,000 affordable housing project at Kpone.

The country’s housing deficit stands at more than 1.7 million housing units and requires the construction of 10,000 units a year over a period of 10 years to fix. It is against this backdrop that the Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, Ms Freda Prempeh, at the signing ceremony of partnership agreement between Ghana Home Loans (GHL) and Rendevour at the United States (US) Embassy in Accra to construct 2,600 affordable housing at Appolonia City in the Greater Accra Region said the government was looking at putting up 200,000 affordable housing units every year to meet the housing needs of citizens.

Suggestions

In a bid to make house purchasing easy and affordable, real estate developers and mortgage financiers want the government to create land banks for estate developers to put up affordable housing units to the populace since the high price of land acquisition affects prices of their products. The government should also subsidise cost of infrastructure to developing sites which would help reduce the final prices of houses in the long run. Estate developers are also advocating a strong legal and regulatory environment for the housing sector. This will help streamline current land administration system procedures and all sector players and provide the framework for a market-based housing sector in Ghana.

UN Habitat report indicates that millions around the world live in life or health-threatening conditions, in overcrowded slums and informal settlements or in other conditions which do not uphold their human rights and their dignity. Provision of adequate housing for the people is,therefore, recognised as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.

According to a recent study by the UN Habitat’s Global Urban Observatory in collaboration with New York University and the Lincoln Institute, public housing represents less than 15 per cent of housing types both in developing and developed world. The tendency in the last two decades has been a rising cost of housing, forcing people to move far away to the outskirts of the city to find affording housing.

In October last year, World Habitat Day celebration, the UN put the focus on the need to improve housing accessibility for the citizenry.

The writer is a journalist with the Information Services Department (ISD) of the Ministry of Information.