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Michell Zvanyanya, Chronicle Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) must provide affordable housing schemes to low income earners to ease the city’s accommodation crisis, a lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), Mr Tisetso Dube, has said.
Addressing residents during a social dialogue on affordable residential stands and housing in Bulawayo on Wednesday, Mr Dube said the deposit demanded for stands sold in the city is beyond the reach of a majority of residents.
The dialogue held in partnership with The Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association (BPRA) and Habakkuk Trust ran under the theme “Dialoguing towards the provision of affordable and inclusive housing.”
“The low-income earners are highly affected by the housing crisis that the city is experiencing because of the absence of affordable land for development. The city no longer has houses for low income earners. A lot of residents have made complaints that they cannot afford the prohibitive deposit for some of the residential stands sold in the city and most residents on the housing waiting list cannot afford the stands on offer. People with money are the ones who are now benefiting at the expense of low-income earners to an extent that some people outside the city are allocated residential stands only because they can afford them,” Mr Dube said.
“There is currently no housing scheme that can help promote access to accommodation for the poor. The local authority must therefore prioritise housing and create a budget that will capacitate it to provide housing to residents. This will help meet the plight of the poor because access to proper accommodation is everyone’s basic human right despite any income category.”
He urged the local authority to open up stakeholder participation and not be the only key player in the provision of residential stands.
Mr Dube said active participation from the Government, Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and communities will play a critical role in defining the housing programmes best suited for residents.
BPRA representative Ms Abigail Siziba said the housing crisis in the city has promoted the creation of informal settlements that have a negative impact in society.
“The increase in demand for accommodation has resulted in the formation of squatter camps for example in areas such as Killarney, Trenance and Ngozi mine with no proper sewer systems and other facilities. Such areas are a threat in society as they provide a hiding place for criminals and increase chances of an outbreak of diseases such as cholera and typhoid,” she said.
Ms Siziba said Bulawayo has approximately 160 000 housing units versus a housing waiting backlog of more than 65.3 percent.
She said this means Bulawayo needs space that is twice what it has allocated for housing to meet demand and this reflects a high demand for accommodation in the city. — @michellzvanyanyan2
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