Gabriel Enenche —
The Managing Director of Family Homes Fund, Femi Adewole yesterday at the 16th edition of the African International Housing Show said housing problems will continue to pose major challenges in the country, if left substantially unsolved.
He said that there could be no shortage of policies and programmes by the country’s different government administrations to tackle housing problems but, poor implementation of these policies remains a persistent dilemma.
Adewole who represented the country’s Vice President, Yemi Osibanjo, presented two categories of housing problems which he said are issues of inadequate housing supply to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population, most significant for persons on low income.
The second he identified as a large proportion of the country’s existing stock of housing are substandard houses which do not meet global accepted standards of habitability.
Adewole added that a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study revealed that 75 percent of the 42 million housing units in the country, about 31.6 million of them are substandard.
“So, there are few problems of creating new homes but, there are problems of actually addressing the substandard nature of a significant number of the housing units we have, he said.
“These challenges will continue to deepen with the increasing social and income inequalities in our society.
“At the extreme, many households are faced with a dilemma of survival between food and adequate shelter. This is not congruent with the administration’s vision for a better Nigeria where even the weakest amongst us have the dignity of a decent home, Femi added.
