Innovative financing for improvement of slum conditions
Nabutola, Wafula
As many Kenyans struggle to put food on the table, they have additional responsibilities of assuring that their families can access suitable decent shelter. There are fundamentally four major challenges in putting up shelter. The first is land and second the tenure associated with that land. Like food housing is a human physiological need and therefore a human right. All persons regardless of their station in life, income, class, race, or religion need housing as a matter of necessity. Basically shelter protects us from the vagaries of nature like the weather and other elements that are man-made activities like theft. The suppliers of finance in urban areas target people who can afford. The market forces, which should be ideal, have an ironic way of distorting the real needs as they operate where they make profit and declare dividends to their shareholders. The income profile of the urbanites is bottom heavy 10% of the people earn 90% of the income, yet the 90% with the least income, are the most in need of financing. This is unfortunate as the people offering financing have a limited market within which to operate. The people who need financing are not at all attractive to the financier. It is evident in the number of up market houses neither rented nor bought.
Event: XXX FIG Working Week and General Assembly : Strategic Integration of Surveying Services
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