SUCCESSFUL HOUSING PROVISION MODEL

Abstract

Housing is a major component of the human life. "Habitation", a word synonymous to Housing, connotes a habitual aspect of a person's activity. Houses have been built long before the days of established forms of government. It pre-dates any form of organized communal activities. Houses have to be built before there can be a town and a few towns have to come together to form a district and correspondingly a few districts to give rise to a territory and ultimately a sizeable community which in turn requires governance and control. The basis of society clearly stems from habitation. The issue of public housing therefore has become and still is a key concern of any society. From a societal point of view, its importance is of such a level of significance that governments around the world can only afford to ignore this component at its own peril. It is not uncommon to find housing issues on many aspiring political manifestos yearning to win the electoral votes. Affordable housing is nearly always an electoral darling. Another factor that requires governmental involvement in public housing programs is the cost of amenities surrounding the program. Such amenities are big-ticket items for which it requires a large upfront capital involvement and a long recoup period. From the home-owner perspective, the price tag of an impending purchase is a major consideration. Other considerations, which are equally significant, are the availability of credit facilities, the guarantee of tenure and the developmental amenities. Once we considered all the various concerns of a housing program, we invariably come to a realization that the housing program of any given territory has many implications if we allow complications. There are severe and lasting impacts if a housing program fails in its implementation. Therefore, many academics and housing practitioners have contemplated and studied many housing programs of well-settled countries to carve out a suitable model for replication and in the course of time enhance the success rate of housing programs. Three of the more successful countries where a large part of the population are entrenched in the public housing programs are Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. In the context of my thesis, I propose to make an in-depth comparative analysis of two countries' housing programs, which are similar in terms of the population density, the demographics, the historical time line and cultural background. The purpose of the analysis to mark out any key success factors (KSFs) of each respective country's housing program and to recommend the possible layout for a successful public housing program.