Government for the People: access to Housing

According to the Department of Human Settlements, 2,3 million low-cost houses have been built since 1994 thereby providing housing for more than 11 million people. While this figure is impressive, the challenge remains daunting, given that there are still at least 12 million more people in need of housing. Many of these people currently live in informal settlements (make-shift structures or shacks)

According to Stats SA’s General Household Study, 13% of households live in informal settlements, this the same number as 2002. The year 2005 saw the number of households living in informal settlements at it’s highest since 2002, at 15.7%. Interestingly, it is the highly urbanized provinces of Western Cape, North West and Gauteng which have the highest informal dwellings, above the national average of 13%. During the time of the study, 18.9% of all households were living in state-subsidized house.

Problem

More and more people are migrating to major cities to seek employment and for those who do not have relatives, many of them who come seeking employment end up living in informal settlements, some temporarily and others permanently. Our government continues to rely on traditional methods of building houses for the poor, and these brick-and-mortar methods are not the easiest and quickest to build. The high rate of unemployment means that more and more people find themselves homeless and so as the unemployment rate increases, so too does the proportion of informal settlements. SA’s unemployment rate as at Q3 of 2011 was an alarming 25%.

The Ideas: Solutions

The thing about housing is that, executed correctly it could serve as a silver bullet to resolve broad social challenges. A good house should have piped water, electricity either on or off grid. A house turned into a home could also provide necessary stability for a child to have a balanced up-bringing. 

a) Find cheaper and environmentally-friendly alternative methods of building state-subsidised houses. SA is one of the biggest steel-producing countries in the world and steel is strong, stable and relative cheap. Government should invest money in the development of a building methods which incorporates steel a amin compoment of the building structure. A company in the US has developed a steel panel buidling methods, with great success.

b) Build houses that cost no more than 50% of GDP per capita to build. In South Africa's case, this would be a house costing no more than R49,000 to build.

Our Politicians must show willingness to create effective government!!