HOUSING THE URBAN POOR AND THE ISSUE OF AFFORDABILITY

HOUSING THE URBAN POOR AND THE ISSUE OF AFFORDABILITY

                                                                      By

                                                       KUYE OLUSEGUN

                                           HND; Dip. (Property Law); ANIVS; RSV

ABSTRACT

The debate on housing the urban poor has become more sophisticated since Turner’s original ideas of self-help and self-building by the poor is on a pluralistic approach that stressed enabling housing provision for the poor by expanding the range of providers to include government, the private sector, the poor themselves, non-governmental agencies, and cooperatives. Official housing policy in Nigeria does not reflect the pluralistic approach that prevails in practitioner and academic circles. This paper highlights the obstacles the poor have to overcome to acquire the housing they want. The ethnography provides a basis upon which the mismatch between the pluralistic approach and Nigeria’s housing policy can be Bridge thus providing a way forward. Poverty education dominates the International Development Agenda of the 21^st century highlighted in the Millennium Development Goals. The main policy challenge addressed by this paper therefore, is how to support and regulate the urban informal sector in a way that promotes shelter and livelihood for the poor, and at the same time ensures a safe, health and socially acceptable environment: how to ensure that the struggle against urban poverty and slum dwelling does not result in blaming the victims, or in a campaign against the urban poor and slum dwellers themselves. This paper examines how urban poverty and informal city have developed in Nigeria over the last 50 years; the extent to which government policies and programs have helped or constrained the poor, and how these slums and irregular settlements can be upgraded and progressively integrated into the urban mainstream. It considers how housing and planning codes, standard and regulations inherited from the discriminatory policies and segregationist practices of the colonial period have continued to inhibit the access of the poor to affordable housing and tenure security; the concluding section considers the essential elements of a strategy to improve the informal sector and the conditions of the poor, paying particular attention to the roles which state and local authorities, the international development community and the urban poor themselves could play in a collaborative effort to public safer, healthier, more inclusive and more equitable cities. It also emphasizes the importance of the housing industry in poverty and Aviation in Nigeria.

1.0       INTRODUCTION

Nigeria’s housing problems are enormous. Rapid urban growth, resulting from the oil boom of the 1970’s couple with accelerated socio-economic development has created demand pressure on housing stock leading to high rent, over crowding, squatter settlements and slums. The depression in the Nigeria economy notwithstanding, the rural urban drift continues unabated because of the socio-economic in- balance of the national economy.   In most of our cities, especially Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and Warri, the occupancy rate is as high as between 6 and 10 persons per room!

Urban housing situations, conditions and demands in development regions are determine or influenced by a variety of demographic, economic, social, legal and organizational administrational factors, which are reciprocal. Typical of most urban centers in many countries of the world are the followings:

• Rapid population growth as a result of natural growth (improved sanitary facilities decreasing infant mortality, and higher life expectancy) and rural-urban migration.
• Low income level of the majority (50-85%) of urban households, a considerable share of which is engaged in the informal sector of the economy.
• High costs and relatively high standards of the public and authorized private housing which are beyond the reach of some 80-90% of urban households.
• Scarcity and high prices of urban building land often as a result of speculation.
• Outdated building regulations and related legislation.
• Inadequate provision of urban facilities and services.
• Antiquated system of land survey, mapping, registration and shortage of qualified staff.
• Slow process of urban planning, zoning, etc
• Lack of saving and housing financing institutions
• Inadequate housing policies and programmes, and lack of coordinating among the authorities concerned.

Many urban households in most of our cities are forced to look for accommodation in unauthorised and overcrowded squatter houses, which have no access to motorable roads, clean water supply, sewerage and drainage, electricity, and other urban services. Very often, even the middle-income households which could afford to pay an economic rent, are not able to find adequate accommodation due to increasing demand for scarce habitable accommodation.

The provision of affordable shelter for the poor and vulnerable groups such as women, children, the aged, disadvantaged Nigerians is hampered by limited resources, rapid urbanization, lack of political will, and difficulties faced in the formulation of an effective housing policy to meet the socio-economic needs of the people. In addition, housing has to compete with other basic human needs such as food, water, health, employment and security, for available national resources. In the light of the above, the major cities and towns in Nigeria are characterized by:

a. Increase in number of beggars in the major streets including women and children.

b. Mushrooming of unsanitary slums and associated environmental degradation, which have adverse effects on the health of the people.

In this regard, the common features of poor neighborhoods are as follows:

• Hosing designs and standards are often inadequate in terms of health and safety.
• A casual look at buildings in poor neighbourhoods will reveal houses that are in bad state of structural and decorative repairs as a result of the indifferent attitude of the owners or occupants to building maintenance.
• The environment of poor neighborhoods areas is abysmally dirty. Heaps of dirt and other waste products ranging from papers, used plastics, etc, are common The gutters are often blocked and cannot therefore serve their purpose.
• There is lack and/or inadequate provision of social and infrastructures facilities such as health centers, schools, road network and refuse Social amenities such as pipe-borne water, electricity, telephone facilities, etc, are lacking too.

Consequent of the foregoing, the sceneries in poor neighbourhoods consist of sub-standard housing, over-crowding, inadequate public infrastructural facilities to go round the population and air-borne diseases is most prevalent due to offensive odours and dusty air (air pollution).

2.0          INTEGRATED APPROACH TO HOUSING THE URBAN POOR

2.1   WHO IS AN URBAN POOR?

URBAN POOR is defined as any person or household whose income falls below the poverty threshold in term of average earning capacity per member of the household with its negative effect on income available for housing, transportation, children education, dependent relatives, etc. This definition varies from country to country, for instance, in United State of America, any household is officially defined poor by the social security administration if its annual money income is less than three times the cost (in current prices) of minimal diet for the persons in that household.

In the National Housing policy document published by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, the low-income group is defined as all wage earners and self-employed people whose annual income is N5,000.00 or below as of 1988 or whose annual income is 20% or below the maximum annual income of the highest salary grade level within the civil service structure at any given time, whichever is higher. According to this document, the current statistics indicates that about 70% of Nigerians fall into this category.Those of the labour force earning N5,000.00 and below per annum are not adequately housed and live in absolute poverty. The situation is much worse for the unemployed and urban self-employed in the informal sector. Some people have raised the question, “Why does the housing of the urban poor require special attention? After all, they can live or squat in the various urban slums in the town. By trying to house them, you are encouraging and perpetuating laziness amongst then.”

New towns are full of activities and thus attract a lot of skilled and unskilled labour. Adequate accommodation may not exist in the town. People will therefore resort to commuting from neighbouring existing towns. Most government housing constructions or programmes in the new towns rarely provide for the poor especially those in the informal sector as though they do not constitute part of the city life. Most private developers also prefer to develop detached duplexes, bungalows or flats which the urban poor cannot afford.

The poor people, more or less, are confined to few slum settlements in the city’s periphery, and because of the high rental values and scarcity of accommodation in these slum settlements, eight or more people often crowded up in one room in an unhygienic environment. Because the government rarely provides for this category of people, they at times invade vacant plots on the city’s periphery to provide for their own accommodation, or they squat with their relations or their kinds already accommodated in such environment or in old and abandoned buildings at city centres.

An agreement as to what will constitute a minimum standard housing has not been reached. According to Nigeria Town and County Planning Act of 1959, a minimum housing unit should include the following:

• A shower, or bath and flush toilet.
• Electric light, pipe borne water adequate ventilation and building materials, which are durable in nature.

On its part, the National Council on Housing defines it (The former) to:

• Comprise one to three bedrooms, a sitting room
• A flush toilet and shower with a kitchen

As there is no consensus as to what constitutes the minimum housing standard is based on international standards to what of Britain or the United State, even though we may aspire to attain their level, our economic position should be the determinant of our standard. Housing is a highly visible dimension of poverty. Perhaps that is why it represents such an emotive issue in so many third world cities. This is manifested in the sight of thousands and often millions of people huddle in shabby accommodation with very little or no public infrastructural facilities and services.

The slum may be with us always and for many people, it may be the only escape from famine and stagnation, the temporary anchorage of the struggling towards something better. Before going into the integrated approach to housing the urban poor, it will be necessary to define housing. “Housing is not just shelter, but part of the fabric of neighborhood life and of the whole social milieu. It touches on the facets of industrialisation, economic activity and development” (Abrams 1964). In other words housing encompasses the immediate environment, sanitations, drainage, recreational facilities and all other economic and social activities that make life worthwhile.

The urban poor need not just the shelter, but including employment. It is obvious that most of our housing programmes have no provision for the poor. In the past we have heard that a telephone and air travel is not for the poor. The poor man should be encouraged to own his house through self-help housing programme. The poor should be taught the basic construction methods and through cooperative formation, he should be able to own his house. The government from day one should take note of possible formation in new towns and check it by providing possible basic facilities like pipe-borne water, electricity, roads and drainage for them.

The poor should be taught how to make their own roofing tiles, doors, and windows. They should be able to produce stabilized laterite bricks which have been acclaimed to have more crushing strength than sandcrete block. The government could also provide a fresh site where they can be encouraged to build their own houses through self-help and the encouragement to form co-operative societies. Some of them come to the cities unskilled, but with these kinds of proposals, they will acquire a skill which they will use to earn a living when they finish their construction works. Some of them could learn carpentry, masonry, and electrical works. They could be assisted to set up cottage industries with government aid where they will produce building materials using locally sourced raw materials not only for their own use but for sale to other members of the public.

Few are aware of the research findings of the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute in terms of local building materials. Their research findings include roofs and ceiling materials using local fibers, stabilized laterite, etc. They should be provided with simple designs to enable them construct simple houses. They should be provided with simple designs to enable them construct simple houses. The local and state governments should provide the communities with technical assistance. For the populations of the consolidating settlement, progress may be slow but there will be consistency and continuity. When money is available, they invest by way of improvement to their housing; when times are hard, they are not evicted because they do not pay rent

2.2      AFFORDABILITY PROBLEMS

There are two kinds of affordability problems.

• The risk faced by those whose resources are so low that they cannot afford the minimum standard of shelter that is Their problems are most effectively addressed by improvement in the functioning of basic infrastructural supply and/or providing security of tenure. The encouragement of home ownership through a more efficient housing finance system is not the most practical direct method of providing shelter for the poor. Perhaps the central lesson of the shelter protests in developing countries is that in a physical design sense, housing can be made affordable to most households.
• The second type of affordability problem arises because when contracts are written in nominal terms, inflation makes housing unaffordable to most families at market rates or interest. Focus here is on mortgage contracting procedures that can address this later housing affordability problem.

From this perspective, the objective for redesigning mortgage contracts is to eliminate the financial constraints that impede the affordability of housing for greater numbers of lower and moderate-income households. The objectives are not necessarily to produce more housing (although that outcome will also result), rather it is to provide a financing vehicle so that those who can afford to, and so desire, can purchase homes.

2.3              REASONS WHY THE POOR COULD NOT AFFORD THEIR OWN HOMES

Lack of adequate funds: There are not enough funds to embark on building projects of good standards. Also, due to lack of funds, building owners are not able to employ qualified contractors to handle their building projects with the consequent of employing those they can afford to pay their fees and so a poor quality job is obtained.

Low pay packet: His take-home pay after statutory deduction are so low that he cannot afford to meet his basics needs such as food, clothing, health, etc, talk less of saving for housing. The poor worker who manages to feed and clothe him and family cannot afford to pay for his rent or save to build his own house.

High cost of modern building materials: Our indigenous technologies have failed to provide alternative to the very expensive foreign building materials which are out of the reach of low income. Currently a bag of cement which is a primary material for housing construction sale for about N800.00 on the average and may go up as much as N1,000 a bundle of corrugated iron sheets called Zinc sales for N 5,400 to mention but a few.

Unemployment: Unemployment rate has continued to increase unabatedly over the years and low- income group has the lion share of the increase. The unemployment rate, which was about 3.8% in 1991 doubled to 6.0% in 1997 and it is presently to be estimated over 10%.

Other reasons include:

• Land in urban area is expensive and often times, it is several times the annual income of the average low-income workers. Despite the Land Use Act, access to land for housing is still a very difficult fit eve to the middle-income group. The high land price, exorbitant title processing fees and difficult administrative bottlenecks make land unavailable to the low-income group.
• Building materials are relatively high as most of the building components like cement, corrugated iron sheets, toilet and light fittings have foreign components all of which add up to the high building cost which post a minimum of forty (40) times the income of the average low income workers.
• Land is not within the reach of the low-income workers because of high interest rate, which is currently a minimum of 33% in the money The high interest rate, apart from further contributing to the high cost of housing, renders investment in housing unviable by way of the credit as the returns on the property together with the workers income are insufficient to service the interest on the loan let alone repay the principal.
• Most housing designs especially meant for the so-called low-income group hardly put the low- income into consideration in their conceptualization. The designs are such that they fit and match the taste and yearnings of the middle-income earners, and at times, those of the high income who often outbid them in the quest for such houses.

All these have continually made it necessary to evolve radical strategies for housing the low-income group.

2.4    FAILURE OF SOCIAL HOUSING IN NIGERIA

Although government took varieties of steps to curb the problems and challenges of housing in Nigeria, the principal among which is the provision of social housing for the urban poor, this has however, failed to proffer solution to the national shelter deficit. Some of the factors responsible for the failure are:

Non-availability of Land: Though the Nigeria’s Land Use Act of 1978 was intended to facilitate availability of land for housing and other development projects, the process of land acquisition by government has been difficult to come by vis-a-viz the tradition of native land owners that made land uneasy to acquire. In Nigeria, especially the southern part, it is traditional to hold land in trust for the living and even for the unborn members of a family. This concept is contrary to the Land Use Act that vests all lands in the urban areas of each state solely in the state governor for allocation, and conferred lands in the rural areas on the local government councils. These conceptual differences have continued to pose’ problem to social housing development in Nigeria, and have resulted in a number of court cases between individuals and government, especially where government employs or attempts to employ force in acquiring or taking possession of lands from their owners.

Political Instability: Social housing in Nigeria, especially those under the National Development Plans achieved little or no result as the period witnessed series of political and governmental changes resulting from military interventions. Military interregnum was followed by gross abandonment of projects that were initiated by the ousted administrations. This has negatively affected the social housing programmes of government, particularly those that were initiated between 1980 and 1985. As earlier mentioned in this discourse, most of the housing projects initiated by the deposed governments were neglected to the mercy of thieves who took the advantage to loot the building materials.

Lack of Continuity: The impact of social housing provision under civilian regimes is gradually becoming significant as expected. The clog in the wheel had been the problem of continuity that the housing sector of the economy suffered under the military. Like any other programme, government’s housing projects were politicized, as an incoming government would, in an effort to excel over its predecessor, prefer to start up new projects rather than completing the existing ones. The overall adverse effect of this was the old projects being abandoned for thieves to loot and for the destitute and wandering psychotics to take possession as their dwelling places.

Party Influence: Under civilian government, appointment of building contractors for housing projects was based on membership of the ruling political party rather than the ability to execute the contracts. The resultant effect of this was that such contracts would either be poorly performed or completely abandoned. .In most cases, members of the allocation committee for the completed housing projects were drawn from the ruling political party, and the rich members of the party who do not have real need for the houses would win the allocation.

3.0 HOUSING FOR THE POOR AND THE ISSUE OF AFFORDABILITY

From the past efforts of the government to provide housing for the poor, it has now become obvious that any design that does not consider the way of life, the economic means and affordability of the poor will not achieved the desired aim. The consequence is that such design will be bogus, expensive and cost ineffective thereby pushing the development out of the reach of the target group. With regard this, the major considerations in addressing the issues of affordability are as follows:

a. Plan and shape of the building: The plan and shape of the building is a vital determinant of the cost of the building most especially the shape of the external cladding elements namely: walls, windows and external doors. It is believed that the more compact the plan and the nearer it is kept to a square shape, the more cost effective it will be.

b. Building size: Increase in the size of building usually produces total cost but reduced unit cost. The total cost of the twin-units will be increased, but the cost of each individual unit will be less if it were singularly built (Ajibola & Olubodun, 1990). This in effect means that as many units as possible may be planned and constructed thus drastically reducing the cost of each unit within the block of flats.

c. Construction materials: The material component in construction can be defined as an item that goes to be permanent fixed in position as a component of the final product (Ajibola & Olubodun, 1990). Other major construction inputs are labour, equipment and plant, management and capital (World Bank, 1984). Because of the high level of material input in building, there is considerable increase in the cost of housing production.

To achieve a cost saving, any materials that will escalate the cost of construction should be eliminated. In this wise, the use of cement in the construction of low income housing should be discontinued for the following reasons (Wiesinger, 1985):-

• Cement will not become accessible to all people including the poor until well into 21^st Century – if ever;
• Cement production is energy intensive and costs are likely to increase rapidly as energy prices rise. This is already the case in Nigeria. For instance, a bag of cement cost N5.00 in 1979, 00 in 1984, N450.00 in 1994 and it is now more than N800.00 in 2002.

This singular factor may have accounted for the reasons why housing programmes for low-income earners have thus become housing programmes for the high-income bracket group. To therefore reduce cost of building, sandcrete bricks and cement should be eliminated and in place of these items, the use of laterite should be encouraged. The reasons for this suggestion are as follows:-

• Laterite is readily available and very cheap
• Burnt bricks made form laterite are very strong and when properly laid requires no additional rendering/plastering and also cost of painting is saved as it does not need to be painted.
• It is long lasting and maintenance free.
• Adopting laterite therefore, a one-bedroom unit will all the auxiliary services could be well below N75,000.00.

d. Project execution: The connectional tendering procedures and contractual arrangements for project execution is too expensive for use in any serious housing programmes that seeks to achieve economy in construction for the poor for the following reasons (Ajibola and Olubodun, 1990):

• The overhead and profit required by the contractor to execute the project will have to be charged to the work.
• The strategy that could therefore be adopted is the direct labour system engaged by the prospective owners or by the government agency.

THE PROPOSED ONE-BEDROOM CORE YEAR 2001 (ESTIMATE)

Source: Field study (200)

4.0              RECOMMENDATIONS

Many of the ad-hoc measures that have been taken by various administrations over the years cannot truly pass a body of policies, for they have not been sufficiently long term in outlook and besides, these policies were never consistently pursued. As a matter of fact, housing as a distinct instrument for social policy only begin to feature in our development programme within the last decade or so. It is apparent that the efforts of government alone cannot solve the housing problems of any nation, so much so in our depressed economic circumstances. There has to be cooperation between and private enterprises. Having said that, the following recommendations and/or suggestions are proffered:

• Our national housing should be formulated with the federal government playing a leading role, that is supervisory and the guarantee of the provision of public infrastructural facilities, this way, housing production will be stimulated and become a way of life among its citizens. With this development, we can hope to do away with the menace of graft and corruption on the part of those entrusted with implementation of housing policies.
• The management structure of Federal Housing Authority is over-due for a thorough re-appraisal. Dynamic management structure calls for immediate reshuffling of the individual department saddle with public housing.
• The federal government should discontinue with direct construction, supervision and management of housing project. Instead, the federal government should concern itself with formulation of housing policies, standard of codes, monitoring the activities of site and services development agencies and housing finances.
• Cost of building materials and maintenance: Government should embark on policy that will enhance a reduction in the cost of building materials and maintenance of existing building such as, exempting imported building materials from custom duty and pursuing programmes that can help in sourcing alternative local materials and development them.
• Regional planning programmes: It is very important for government to embark on regional planning programmes both at the National and State levels to in order to ensure the rural areas and other areas where basic infrastructure facilities are lacking, undergo development. This is to help reduce rural-urban migration and uneven population distribution.
• Revision of the Land Use Act: There is a great need to review the Land Use Act because it has made it very difficult and expensive for ordinary Nigerian to acquire land from the government. Government needs to take a critical look at the provisions of this Act and make necessary amendment so as to encourage property development at a larger scale. Government land policy should streamline the land policy to create an enabling environment for home ownership by low income groups Security of tenure should be ensured.
• The encouragement of investors. There is need to encourage investors by giving them incentives such as serviced plot, grants if possible and tax exemptions among others. This will attract more people to property investment and so increased the housing stock
• Town planning regulation: The government should ensure that any development to be carried out should be in accordance with the town planning regulations. They should also ensure that no building plan is be approved especially those devoid of housing facilities that would ensure the maintenance of good health and This can be achieved by ensuring that competent professionals are employed by the various town planning authorities should be equipped with necessary machinery to effect planning control in the different Local Government Areas.
• Cooperative housing societies: The government should encourage the establishment of the cooperative housing societies at the local government level. This will help members of these societies to help themselves in housing development and management. This, the government can do with the assistant of the Peoples’ Bank and the Community Banks.
• Revisiting the Employees Housing Scheme Decree: There is need to revisit, and probably, review the Employees Housing Scheme Decree (Decree 54 of 1979) which made it mandatory for employers with over 100 employees to provide housing estate for them. This will help to ensure that the available housing stock is increased through making more houses available for the public.
• Cost of labour: The cost of labor is one of the major factors militating against housing Currently the cost of labour is very high. Government should therefore help to check the excesses of those that are involved in the construction of houses. Government should also engage in mass training to develop manpower and technical skill to help the increase the level of professionalism and also help reduce the time us in development process to the barest minimum.
• An effective national shelter strategy should be formulated with the following essential criteria:- enabling environment, reliability, sustainability and the mobilization of the potentials of communities in housing delivery.
• The government could make the public housing estate for the low incomes earners more affordable by suing our locally made building materials.
• Many private developers are discouraged to develop because of the many taxes involved right form the acquisition of land to its developed state. Government should review these taxes, grant tax relief by way of exemption, reductions and granting of tax holidays.
• Support should be given research activities in the development and standardization of affordable building materials; and information dissemination of appropriate technology.
• Private sector participation: This sector involvement in housing is more dynamic and more capable of adaptation to the world’s changing economic conditions than the parastatals. Private housing finance companies have, however, stayed clear of low income housing finance because of the risks involved and lack of government initiatives for encouraging this type of financing.
• The government must encourage the housing finance companies, such as primary mortgage banks, cooperative societies savings and loans firms among others, by giving them an incentive that will induce them to direct their attention of the provision of low cost housing. This could be achieved through the financing of services land through the state and federal governments. Such schemes require the joint efforts of private and public sector housing agents and full involvement of the communities who are to benefit.
• Government and community participation: the three tiers of government in Nigeria should support communities imploring their neighborhoods. This support could take the form of both financial and technical assistance, thus creating an enabling environment for such communities to be able to rapidly improve their environment and the quality of their housing. The technical assistance to be offered could include:-
  • An accelerated processing and issuance of certificate of occupancy
  • Accelerated processing and approval of building plans.
  • Provision of social amenities including health centers and schools.
  • Provision of infrastructures such as roads water, electricity and sewers.
  • Training of communities in skills for putting up buildings.

The provision of sites and services will greatly assist the communities in the direct provision of housing that will be affordable and also improve their environment..

• Enabling regulations should be enacted to facilitate the adaptation of building standards to materials/method affordable to low income groups. This includes changes in by-laws planning regulations and building code.
• Compilation of a database on housing demand and needs should be embarked upon.

5.0       CONCLUSION

It is obvious that the low income workers will not be able to afford their own houses for decades to come given the current prices of land and building materials. Government should therefore see housing provision as part of its social services. The low cost housing schemes can best be achieved by the use of direct labour laterite construction through the supervision of its agent – the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing or its other parastatals responsible for housing matters (e.g. Federal Housing Authority). Before the commencement of the scheme however, household population of each area concerned should be stratified according to income and home ownership to identify those urgently requiring to be housed. Furthermore, this scheme, being a social service, the units should be given to the households at a price no more than 50% of each household’s income and then learning the work of upgrading entirely in the hands of each household.

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