Abstract
D.Phil. (Engineering Management)
One of the challenges plaguing the Government of South Africa (post-1994), like other developing nations, is the dire shortage of adequate housing. South Africa‘s government is constitutionally mandated to ensure that everyone has access to adequate housing. To this end, the state is obligated to take reasonable legislative and other measures to achieve the progressive realisation of the right to adequate housing. Since 1994, South Africa has delivered about 4.5 million subsidised houses to the poor, and low- to moderate-income households through its National Housing Subsidy Programme. This delivery benefitted more than 20 million people with secured homes. Despite this significant achievement, the unmet demand for housing is rising, such that more than 2 million South Africans still live in squalor conditions in the nation‘s informal settlements and in the backyards of other people‘s homes. The housing backlog rose from about 1.2 million in 1994 to about 2 million households in 2017, and the number of informal settlements across the country has increased from 300 in 1994 to more than 2 700 in 2017. South Africa is experiencing a number of what is dubbed ‗service delivery unrests‘ from communities in need of housing, among other basic services. Given the above, there are concerns within government, civil society and the private sector as to the ‗un-sustainability‘ of the current housing delivery programme, not only in respect of its affordability to the fiscus but also in respect of the nature of the socio-economic benefits and leverages that are being achieved.
The aim of this study was to examine the factors that influence the delivery of housing in South Africa and other developing nations, in order to develop a model for the sustainable delivery of housing. The primary aim of the research was to model to what extent state participation, private sector participation, community participation, housing finance, capacity development, stakeholder coordination and three housing tenure options (i.e., rental housing, housing for ownership and the provision of serviced sites) predict the sustainable delivery of housing. A conceptual model for the sustainable delivery of housing was developed based on the theory developed from the literature review and the findings from interviews conducted. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the National Department of Human Settlements and its entities, Gauteng Department of Human Settlements (Housing), and three metropolitan municipalities in the Gauteng Province (i.e., Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, and City of Johannesburg). The survey targeted senior and middle managers, professionals and practitioners responsible for the following critical functions in the housing delivery value chain: housing policy development, housing planning, programme and project management, monitoring and evaluation, and beneficiary management.
Results from the investigation pertained to three broad areas. The first related to theory on housing provision studies. It was evident from the literature reviewed that researchers and policy developers...