South Africa’s Housing Conundrum - Introduction - S

Formal housing delivery The value of the housing subsidy has shot up, partly because of the increased costs of building a better quality four-room “BNG” house, and partly because of the BNG decision to link the subsidy to the inflation rate. [...] The Government also began to engage with the recently established Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP), which had risen from the ashes of the SAHPF, managed to salvage the uTshani Fund, and established a new Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC). [...] To re-cap: First, the “right to housing”, as provided for in the Constitution, is the cornerstone of housing policy and is likely to remain so. [...] The subsidy would not be paid to the buyer but rather, via the transferring attorneys, to the bank providing the mortgage loan. [...] At the same time, the successful in situ upgrading of informal settlements is extraordinarily difficult and is unlikely to succeed unless more is simultaneously done to increase the housing stock available to the poor.