Abstract
Adequate housing is one of the necessities of a qualitative life. It is only next to food and clothing in importance and contributes to the attainment of the physical and moral health of a nation. Decent housing also stimulates the social stability and economic development for the country. Successive Governments have attempted to provide access to qualitative housing for low-income groups without meaningful results. This study, therefore, interrogates the role of social welfare in enhancing access to housing among the middle and low-income earners to ascertain the extent to which the frameworks for housing delivery in Nigeria advance the welfare of the poor. With the aid of Social Democratic theory, the study opines that access to housing can only be democratized for all classes of income groups when the principle of social welfare constitute the foundation of the framework for housing delivery. The study used documentary tools in the generation of its data and analytical approach in its analysis. The study discovered among others; that social welfare orientation plays crucial roles in the creation of universal access to housing in several advanced countries around the world, and the lack of social welfare principle in the frameworks for housing delivery in Nigeria is to a large extent responsible for the ever-widening housing gap in the country. The study recommends that the Federal Government should undertake a review of the frameworks for housing delivery in order to establish the social welfare principle as a cardinal principle in the housing delivery strategies for the middle and low-income earners in the country. Keywords: Social welfare; Access to housing; Middle and Low-income Earners; Housing Delivery Framework; Housing Delivery. DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/11-1-08 Publication date: February 28th 2021
Highlights
housing for Nigerians (Housing) can be defined as a physical structure built for habitation
This paper examines the role of social welfare in enhancing access to decent housing among the middle and low-income earners in Nigeria with particular focus on frameworks designed for housing delivery
Instructive to note that one major lacuna and which is mainly responsible for the intractable problem of lack of access to housing among the middle and low-income class is the absence of social welfare principles in the frameworks for housing delivery
Summary
Housing can be defined as a physical structure built for habitation. It is an indispensable component of any meaningful existence of human being. Due to certain unique features of housing, housing markets are unable to operate smoothly like other markets of other commodities This peculiarity of the housing market has, not made housing product less useful among different categories of income groups in the society. The disadvantaged and burden groups are those whose income can be categorized as middle and low in society For the latter group, Government intervention in housing delivery is essential, especially in order to guarantee their welfare. We show that housing projects meant for the benefit of the low-income groups were not delivered, thereby exacerbating the problem of lack of access to housing. This paper, interrogates the role of social welfare in enhancing access to housing among the middle and low-income earners in Nigeria with a specific focus on the existing frameworks for housing delivery
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