no mistake of their own cannot afford
housing at cost; A mortgage guarantee
scheme for various cadres in the mortgage
gap, this should be addressed by KMRC;
Targeted housing programmes reflecting
various housing demand and funding
mechanisms, including: Slum Upgrading,
Social Housing, Community Housing,
Rural Housing, Cooperative Housing,
Civil Servant Housing, Students Hostels,
Inner City Housing, Housing for Special
Needs, etc. Create a clear link between
these housing programmes and the
funding mechanisms.
Counties also need to consider
pragmatic ways of engaging the private
sector, national government agencies,
development partners and local investors
to jump start housing for their people.
They need to consider practical incentives
they can give, e.g. planned land, type plans
available to residents and developers at no
cost, ease of approval, waiver of approval
charges, collaborating with civil society
organizations, cooperatives, community
based organisation that are working to
improve the housing conditions for the
low income, etc.
Counties should invest in planning their
urban areas including housing estates.
Planned orderly development is key in
attracting and retaining housing investors.
Further, they should invest in gradual
improvement of their informal settlements
through allocation of resources for
infrastructure and services and tenure
security. These infrastructure and service
investments, together with security of
tenure will attract local investors who will
improve the slum housing conditions.
Housing finance will only be unlocked
significantly if government considers
how people are actually financing their
buildings then developing financial
mechanisms to support these. People are
building incrementally, mainly through
personal savings (54%) and savings mainly
through SACCOs (11%). Therefore
savings linked credit should be a key pillar
of housing finance in Kenya.
Does It Have Any Future?
Debt Burden, Economic
Meltdown And Covid-19
2019 saw the Government of Kenya debt
accumulation hit a record high of Kshs
6 trillion, about 64% of the GDP. About
61% of the revenue was being spent on debt
repayment. This left almost no resources
to fund development. Broader economic
mismanagement collapsed demand for
existing housing. Market. Even before Covid-19 pandemic
housing did not make it to top 10 of needs
of Kenyans, this is likely to get even further
down in terms of priorities as people focus
on basics for survival.
The question is: where was government
going to find demand for its’ home
ownership agenda - supposing it was
still able to deliver 500,000 units in the
remaining two years? As it is, there are
really no houses produced, with investors
shying away from investing in housing, and
most of the government plans remaining
untenable because of lack of funds. As this
article is being written only one government
project, namely Park Road Ngara, has been
executed as earlier mentioned. All factors constant therefore, Kenya
Government Housing Agenda is all but
dead. Nevertheless, government can now
focus on developing a long-term housing
strategy aligned with Kenyan realities,
considering housing as part of the bundle
of socio-economic needs.
On the back of a weakened, indebted
economy, the Covid-19 pandemic hit,
disrupting supply chains and more
significantly eroding effective demand for
basic goods and services. Kenya’s economy
is projected to slow down - possibly getting
into recession. The spending power of the
general population in the next three years is
expected to be at a record low.
There has been significant flight of
investments from the Nairobi Stock
The good part of this failure though, is
that not many people were caught up in
unnecessary long-term debt that would
have added to their duress during this
time of economic meltdown.
Prof. Alfred Omenya, B.Arch,
M.Arch, PhD is an Architect and
Urban Development Expert and the
Chief Executive Officer of Eco-
Build Africa. You can engage him
on this or related matters via email
at: [email protected].