Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Globally, the demand for affordable housing (AH) continues to outweight their supply. The genesis of urban housing crisis leading to housing affordability phenomenon has been studied from two perspectives inadequate supply of AH and insufficient incomes to pay market rents or own homes. Each perspective requires different approaches to resolve the ensuing urban housing crisis (Ghazali, 2019). The concept of AH is more akin to financial affordability which is affected by two key components (UN-HABITAT, 2011): the cost of purchasing and cost of keeping the house. While there is no universally acceptable standard in defining housing affordability, there are however three approaches that are commonly used to define AH, namely the Median Multiple (MM) methodology, Housing Cost Burden (HCB) approach and the Residual Income (RI) (Su Ling & Almeida, 2017). Besides, in the context of the trade-off model of classical residential location decision theory of neoclassical microeconomics, the choice of place to live within an urban setting is about the trade-off between housing price and transport costs under the income threshold approach (Seo & Nam, 2019). Housing affordability represents a particular housing challenge in communities that face increasing demands for housing because of an absolute increase in the number of households in general. Lately there has shortages of affordable rental units, especially for households with low incomes, because of several factors (Anacker, 2019). On the supply side, these factors include insufficient construction and a deteriorating housing stock, neither of which is meeting the increasing demand for affordable housing in addition to possible excessive profit seeking behaviours by landlords (Anacker & Li, 2016). Whereas on the policy side, exclusionary zoning and insufficient government subsidies and regulation contribute to high rent burdens, leading to possible family displacement and homelessness (Massey et al., 2013). According to Afify (2016), building construction contributes to global sustainability through sustainable communities, construction and technology particularly in the case of low-income housing in the majority of developing countries. The main phases of the AH supply process identifies three distinct stages in the production process namely design, tendering and construction (Al Khalaf, 2014). Considering that construction is a process of assembling materials using labour and accumulating overheads over time into a finished product (Koskela & Howell, 2002). Nambatya (2015), Magutu (2015) and Adedeji (2005) respectively show that some ABTs can reduce construction time with up to fifty percent (50%), thereby savings in labour costs.
In Namibia, there is a mismatch between the supply and demand of AH (Sweeney-Bindels, 2011). This is more so in the lower-income groups earning a monthly salary less than N$5,000 and constituting more than 85% of the Namibian population (FNB, 2011; Finance, 2008). The housing backlog was estimated at 100,000 units for 2016, Mass Housing Programme (MHP, 2014). In Namibia, the national population is projected to increase from an estimated 2.11 million in 2011 to 3.44 million by 2041, or by 63 percent, Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA, 2014). During the more immediate 15-year interval from 2015 to 2030, the population was projected to grow from 2.28 to 2.96 million, which is an increase of 30 percent (NSA, 2014). Apart from population growth, rapid rural-urban migration is another reason raising the demand for housing especially in the urban areas.