Challenges in the Provision of Affordable and Decent Housing for Low Income Earners

Limited-profit housing associations are established players in Vienna’s housing market. The exorbitant rise in land and construction costs in recent years and increasing demand for affordable housing have far-reaching implications for the provision of affordable housing in Vienna. These developments are causing shifts not only in the housing market in general, but also within the nonprofit sector. This paper approaches these shifts at the level of limited-profit housing associations and examines a) which interpretations of affordability and related challenges can be found in the field of limited-profit housing, and b) which practices are applied in the provision of (affordable) housing. Empirically, the article draws on interviews with board members, managing directors and project developers from the limited-profit housing sector, which were conducted between 2020 and 2021. Finally, implications for the limited-profit sector in Vienna and for the provision of (affordable) housing are discussed. English title: The provision of affordable housing in times of the housing crisis. Interpretations and practices of the non-profit sector in Vienna

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected various aspects of life and the majority of industries all over the world. While extant studies have reported the impact of the pandemic in various sectors and industries, the impact of the pandemic on global affordable housing and housing supply has not received sufficient attention. Therefore, this study provides a global comparative evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the twin issues of affordable housing and housing supply. Google Scholar, Science Direct, ResearchGate and Primo Search were used in conducting database searches for previous studies published within the period of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023). The framework of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was adopted in the systematic selection of 37 extant studies. Bibliometric, content and thematic analyses were conducted for the qualitative data analyses. Findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted various issues, viz: housing prices, demand and supply, socioeconomic gaps, housing construction activities, informal sector housing conditions, government housing policies, mortgage repayment defaults, multidimensional matters, increased digital nomads, and elderly housing supply. This study is unique in providing a systematic appraisal of extant studies to report the global implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on affordable housing and housing supply. Findings of the study are based on a systematic review of the literature. Indeed, the study offers a global perspective on the impact of the pandemic on the blighted affordable housing situation of different countries. Pertinent gaps in the existing literature and areas for further research were identified, alongside the recommendation of policy pathways for the future.

Purpose Studies showed that sustainable cities and communities through affordable and accessible housing provision have a significant positive relation with good health and well-being (Sustainable Development Goal 3). Therefore, Nigeria’s slum locations may promote infectious diseases if not addressed. Extant literature about the issues facing affordable housing provision in slum locations is scarce. This study investigated the issues and proffered suggestions to improve affordable housing provision in slum locations and, by extension, improve mitigating infectious diseases and achieving Goal 3. Design/methodology/approach The researchers utilised a qualitative research design using a phenomenology approach. This study employed snowball and purposive sampling techniques to select the experts, and 40 interviews were conducted to achieve saturation across five major cities in Nigeria. This study utilised a thematic analysis of the primary data and findings presented in the themes. Findings The findings reveal that infectious/contagious diseases spread faster in slum locations. Lax slum housing upgrading programmes, weak institutional framework, inadequate housing funding, rural-urban migration, inadequate affordable housing policy, lax political will, absence of basic infrastructure in sub-urban locations, high rate of unemployment and lack of national housing database were identified as the issues facing Nigeria’s affordable housing provision in slum locations. Findings suggested measures to mitigate infectious/contagious diseases through affordable housing provision and, by extension, improve achieving Goal 3. Originality/value Besides pro-affordable housing programmes, governments should strengthen public housing institutions by upgrading slum locations with affordable housing, providing basic amenities in sub-urban locations and establishing a sustainable institutional framework to boost affordable housing.

Provision of affordable Housing is a basic human need, and in a developing economy such as Nigeria, the government is continuously seeking innovative means of tackling the challenge of housing deficit. The growing population coupled with the lack of adequate housing has necessitated the need for a strategy by architects and designers to proffer solutions that will complement government housing policies. This study aims to propose adaptable design strategies in the provision of affordable mass housing in a developing economy like Nigeria. To achieve that, the following objectives were pursued: to propose strategies for land-use efficiency, to recommend guidelines for flexibility in design and to incorporate end users’ opinion in the design of mass housing schemes. The study adopted the qualitative research method through the review of existing case studies. Among the recommendations made was proposing guidelines on adaptable design that will aid architects and designers in the design of affordable mass housing schemes.

Sub-divided units (SDU) and the similar type of tiny accommodation namely cage home and cubicle apartment have been existed in Hong Kong for a long period of time. Despite the factthat the living condition of those flats is usually undesirable, there are views in the community that there is demand in the market because these flats can provide affordable urban accommodation to those who are not eligible for Public Rental Housing (PRH) or those who wish to live in the urban area which is closer to their workplaces or their children's place of study at a cheaper rent.
\nThe repeated fire incidents happened in the tenement buildings consisted of SDU causing number of casualties has widely aroused the public concern about the safety of SDU. Although the HK government has been implementing measures since 2011 to tackle the problems of SDU, the number of people living in SDU has still greatly increased from 53,000 in 2007 to 171,300 in 2013, accounting for 2.4% total population of Hong Kong. In fact, the increase of SDU not only reflects that many low-income group cannot afford the high housing rent, but also many households are being forced into inappropriate or sub-standard accommodation. J Pynoons, R Schafer, C Hartman (2012) stated that the quality and location of housing affect the security, happiness, and stability of families, and have serious implications for the economic and social wellbeing of our urban areas. The problems arising from SDUs not only affect the individual of tenants, but also impose hazard to the building management, fire safety, building structure and social order.
\nDue to speculation and limited land supply, the problems of SDUs were still remained unsettled and the housing price has still been escalating to a higher recorded price causing shortage of adequate housing supply and thus the increase of rental price on housing. With rents escalating and Housing Authority waiting lists lengthening, low income households, particular the households who were not eligible to or awaiting for PRH were forced into inappropriate and sub-standard accommodation.
\nAlthough the government has formed a long Term Housing Strategy (LTHS) Steering Committee to look into the housing problems of grassroots families, it would not see the proposed measures shall immediately solve the housing problems, particularly in relation to SDUs within a short period of time. All the proposed measures require number of years to plan, discuss and compromise with different parties.
\nThe goal of this dissertation is to review the phenomenon of SDU and to study the reasons of trend of such phenomenon. Without a thorough understanding on the phenomenon of SDU and the reasons of trend, no proper measures shall be implemented to tackle the problems of SDU.
\nThe phenomenon of SDU shall be deemed to be the result of number of reasons relating to land supply and housing demand. The ever rising housing price, the attitude and direction of property developers, the housing policy towards affordable housing and the high cost of living are the factors affecting the supply and demand of affordable housing whereas decreasing vacancy in the private rental market, lack of funding, lack of private development of affordable housing, increasing rent prices, lack of long-term affordable housing planning and the absence of a comprehensive housing policy cause the supply of affordable housing cannot meet the increasing demand. Besides, the attitude of people who worried that affordable housing will increase traffic, reduce their property values and lack of safety in their communities, no one wants to be near or to have additional affordable housing in their communities. These attitudes further make the government difficult to find suitable locations for affordable housing.
\nBesides, various articles and news revealed that many people living in SDU are single parenthood, mental illness, disable and addiction to drugs and drink. However, there is no survey to reflect or indicate the real situation. Government should look into the real situation and to effect proper measures to tackle the problems of the above people.

The Impact of Public Private Partnership is beginning to be more pronounced in emerging markets like Kenya and Nigeria as a preferred means for the delivery of Infrastructure and Housing. In terms of its popularity, the adoption and growth of Public private partnerships has been traced to under performance of Government Budgeting and lack of sufficient funding available to government for financing the different strategically important and development focused projects (including Social Housing), this is also in addition to governments poor risk management capabilities. The challenges facing public funding and its impact on the country’s development have increased the potential for public-private partnerships as an alternative to infrastructure and housing. The study examined the impact of public-private partnerships on affordable housing in Nigeria. It also includes other purposes; examining the impact of management contracts on the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria to identify the impact of the joint venture on the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria. The research adopted the survey research plan and used a structured questionnaire as a tool for data collection. Data analysis was performed in addition to mean and percentage descriptive statistics, as well as correlation and regression analysis. The results showed that Build Own Operate & Transfer Policy has a significant impact on the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria and Lease Contracts has a positive impact on the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria. The study concludes that for public-private partnerships to flourish and achieve affordable housing, each partnership must identify measures of success, be able to quantify and monitor their performance, and identify and address emerging issues. It was suggested that the government take responsibility for ensuring that an enabling institutional environment and infrastructure is provided to support PPP execution. It was also proposed that the government adopt and establish a Viability Gap funding framework to attract private sector participation. As alternative and effective sources of funding will promote affordability and enable public-private partnerships to thrive for the identification, development, funding, implementation, and successful management of affordable housing PPP’s in Nigeria.

The international community recognised that increasing the provision of affordable housing is one of the major development challenges of the twenty - first century. This challenge is even more severe in de veloping economies with high population such as Nigeria, where the government have tried a variety of housing initiatives to help address the challenge but to a relatively very little effect. One of the recent initiatives involves the use of Public Private Partnership (PPP). Unfortunately, the implementation framework does not accurately reflect what is needed to stimulate and broaden housing provision. This paper adopts an Institutional Analysis Development (IAD) Framework approach to analyse PPP as a mechanism for the delivery of affordable housing in Nigeria. Although the IAD approach is best suited to policy tasks that involve developing new policy in itiatives, or comparing alternative policy designs, this research have used it to explain the institutional underpinnings of the many complex problems encountered in affordable housing delivery. The IAD framework helped to integrate the theoretical concept s of PPP and affordable housing provision with the empirical findings of PPP for affordable housing delivery in Nigeria. The empirical data was gathered using semi - structured interviews with practitioners associated with the provision of housing in the pub lic and private sectors in Nigeria. In addition to providing the basis for more effective policy, the research outcomes provide a firm foundation for building partnership for affordable housing delivery. The research also revealed a number of interesting insights that could assist in successful use of PPP for the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria. Therefore, research objective is to develop a sound framework to facilitate the implementation of PPP affordable housing project. This framework define s the issues, attributes, rules - in - use, interaction and evaluation criteria that define how PPPs will be implemented throughout the PPP project life cycle

Housing the urban poor is a prevalent challenge in developing economies, regardless of the research attention and policy interventions over the years. It becomes essential to employ innovative approaches in investigating the challenge of affordable housing (AH) provision to achieve effective AH provision in developing economies. It is pragmatic to thoroughly explore expert solutions to the difficult task of housing the urban poor. To achieve this, focus group discussion and semi‐structured interviews with housing experts in Nigeria were conducted in this study. The recordings were transcribed and analysed using NVivo; following descriptive, content and thematic analyses of data we found that deliberate government policies to include the urban poor are the most significant housing solutions consistent across the entire housing supply value chain (HSVC). Major findings are that mainstreaming the use of alternative housing construction materials and strategies, deliberate finance models to target the urban poor and deliberate reservation of some urban land for housing the urban poor are strategies that will enhance AH provision. These are insights into critical solutions to AH constraints and are informative for effective AH provision for the urban poor in Nigeria; an essential ingredient for sustainable development goals. This study is first to explore experts' opinions in relation to HSVC to showcase significant solutions to AH provision challenges. Data from this study are essential for future pro‐poor housing studies. Recommendations are that AH interventions should be informed by research for more effective and sustainable results.

This paper examines the recent growth of government-led affordable housing in Guangzhou, addressing a paucity of global housing studies that explore experimental and contextual policy approaches in China. It also addresses the lack of Chinese housing studies recognizing the impact of housing design governance, including regulatory controls and design standards, on housing preferences, supply and lifestyles. Since 1995, the supply of affordable housing has surged, now surpassing that of market housing for the first time. This response to failures in the private housing market and a lack of equitable access to housing signifies a significant shift, acknowledging the need to re-establish a state-led and long-term public housing supply after decades of housing marketization. Employing an architectural design research perspective, this paper investigates the interplay between affordable housing supply and the emergence of housing standards, examining resulting housing design outcomes. It poses the question: What changes in housing policy and interventions in housing markets are necessary to increase public rental housing supply, and how do these changes affect housing outcomes? The paper explores these questions through a discussion of the key moments in affordable housing policy and housing estate development in Guangzhou that facilitated the creation of widely accessible public housing and long-term housing assets. This provides new insights into China’s unique approach to translating central government social welfare and housing policy through contextual design experimentation and pilot housing projects, departing from the conventional top-down policy implementation found in most other countries.

Within the UK, Scotland and England operate largely devolved housing policy systems (this paper does not discuss Welsh housing policy, even though much of the same analysis can and should examine the relative divergence of policy between Wales and England, and convergence with Scotland – but that would need to be another paper). Since the 2010 advent of fiscal austerity, housing policy has diverged significantly with respect to affordable and social housing supply programmes. Scotland has returned to council house building and retained a significant grant-funded programme aimed at delivering supply targets intended to tackle unmet housing need. In England, in contrast, following the Coalition Government’s Affordable Homes Programme, the response has been to greatly diminish social housing programmes and to replace them with less generous ‘affordable’ supply programmes for ownership and rent. This experience masks fundamentally different policy settings and assumptions about the housing problem in each country. This paper will first set out the context and mechanisms of housing policy prior to the switch to deficit reduction and austerity, before briefly outlining the policy instruments and strategies adopted in both countries, contrasting their impacts and outcomes. Second, it will investigate the relative effectiveness of these policies, drawing on a synthesis of critical policy science and public policy literatures. The final section discusses the findings in a forward-looking way and also reflects on possible lessons from housing policy divergence and the analytical tools deployed in this paper. Highlights Scotland and England deliver housing policy to support those seeking to live in affordable housing under significantly local policy discretion within the devolved UK. Both countries have pursued increasingly divergent approaches to expanding affordable housing supply. This paper contrasts and explores the two approaches, broadly since the economic crisis of 2008. Adopting a framework drawing on the ideas of policy failure and organized around the structure of a realistic evaluation, we find that Scotland’s programme with higher grant per unit has delivered more social housing and met more of its underlying housing need than was the case in England, which was more focused on lower subsidy and higher rent ‘affordable’ housing. There are wider political and contextual reasons that help explain this divergence in outcome and policy but also uncertainty about how affordable supply will develop in the future.

Housing is one of the basic needs of human beings. Despite its importance, housing prices have continued to increase beyond the reach of the masses. Realizing the fact, the government has made different attempts to ensure the provision of affordable and decent housing for the masses through many initiatives such as the enactment of the Perumahan Rakyat 1Malaysia Act 2012 (Act 739); implementation of My First Home Scheme and other and other social schemes, however, there is still a wide gap in the supply and demand for housing. Consequently, this study assessed the different Waqf financing models towards the provision of affordable Waqf housing in the country. Data were gathered from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was gathered through interviews with the Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (MAIWP), while secondary data was gathered from the review of the literature. The findings indicate that MAIWP adopts the BOT (Built Operate and Transfer) model in its property development programme, and this model could help in the development of Waqf real estate. Despite operating in the most expensive city in the country, MAIWP has thus been able to provide affordable housing for the beneficiaries.

Provision of affordable housing is a global issue and key agenda of UN Habitat, ‘housing for everyone’ (ILO, 1974). It is believed that a decent and good quality affordable housing is a basic and fundamental need for humans and can help to achieve several socio-economic policy objectives (UN-Habitat, 2008; Rizvi, 2015; Shaikh, 2016; Anacker, 2019; Commission, 2019). Housing affordability is mostly assessed based on the income to expense (IER). However, researchers (Anacker, 2019; Affordable Housing Commission, 2019; Matt and Marshall, 2019) are agreed that housing affordability is more than housing (rent, mortgage and utility bills) and non-housing expenses (commuting, health and education expenses, etc.). A household should not spend more than 30% of their household income on housing costs; and social and environmental criteria should be considered to assess the housing affordability Mulliner, Malys and Maliene, 2016; Napoli, Trovato and Giuffrida, 2016; Meen, 2018; Affordable Housing Commission UK, 2019; Matt and Marshal, 2019), especially for low-income households. The government of Pakistan is unable to meet housing requirements due to rapid urbanization and uncontrolled population growth in the country. Available affordable housing developments either are too expensive for low-income households or are built in the periphery of the major cities. Households with low-income ($2 a day) face non-housing expenses (especially traveling cost and time) due to lack of employment opportunities near these affordable housing developments (Rizvi, 2015; Kakakhel, 2014; Gerrity, 2016; Shaikh, 2017; Hasan and Arif, 2018; Islamabad, 2018; Zameen.com, 2019). Consequently, a substantial proportion of population lives in sub-standard and low-quality houses or slums near the town centres of major cities or go homeless. All the housing finance organizations including House Building Finance Company Limited (HBFC: a public body) use IER to assess the housing affordability; and they do not consider any social and environmental criteria. Therefore, there was a need to develop an affordable housing framework that can be used to assess the housing affordability of low-income households. The aim of this research is to establish an affordable housing framework that can be used to assess the housing affordability and to develop future affordable housing developments for the low-income households in Pakistan. A rigorous literature review helped to develop housing affordability assessment criteria (HAAC). In order to bring together cross-national housing information, and to get an approval for developed HAAC, housing professionals in Pakistan were asked to rank them on importance scale. The Delphi methods were used due to their hybrid nature within the mixed research methodology framework. Some statistically significant tests whether to use parametric or non-parametric tests for statistical analysis such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S); to compare the differences of opinion between housing professionals and the end users’ groups Mann-Whitney U test; Cronbach’s alpha to check the internal consistency (reliability) of the data. The HAAC was reduced into most critical criteria by applying factor analysis tests using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Based on the literature review and the field survey results, this thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge by developing the concept of affordable housing to support the low-income households in Pakistan. The framework contains comprehensive housing affordability assessment criteria (HAAC) and income to expense ratio (IER) threshold to assess the housing affordability of low-income households in Pakistan. Housing stakeholders, housing finance & banking sector and government authorities can use this framework to assess housing affordability for low-income households, provide and monitor good quality affordable housing developments for this segment of population in Pakistan.

Offsite construction supply chain strategies for matching affordable rental housing demand: A system dynamics approach

Modular planning of new building construction

Wakafandzakatare the two most essential tools for assisting the poor and needy Muslims to have access to better living conditions. However, in the provision of affordable housing, efforts by thewakafandzakatauthorities are often hampered by constraints such as in the availability of funding and expertise. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of collaborative procurement to empowerwakafandzakatin the provision of affordable housing for the poor and needy. It is contended that through collaborative procurementwakafandzakatauthorities would have better access to resources especially funding and technical expertise. The paper, an outcome of robust desk research and discussions with experts, describes the concepts ofwakaf,andzakatand their efforts to help the poor and needy including in the provision of affordable housing and collaborative procurement. Besides, a collaborative procurement model comprising ofwakafandzakatauthorities and private property developer has been developed and herein proposed. The paper highlights issues and constraints, including those related to the Shariah. The research outcome, concerning the proposed collaborative procurement model, contributes significantly towards empoweringwakafandzakatin the provision of affordable housing for the poor and needy.