Human Settlements White Paper highlights problems with housing provision
23 February 2024
The DA welcomes the emphasis the Draft White Paper for Human Settlements seem to place on public-private partnerships and a whole-of-society approach to solving the country’s housing problems. We would, however, caution the Minister that no partnership with the private sector would absolve the government from playing an enabling role in ensuring affordable housing stock and spatial development.
The White Paper aligns with the DA’s own position paper on housing and urban development, A Firm Foundation, on a number of issues, including the focus on improving socio-economic circumstances through property ownership and the identification of challenges to housing provision.
The White Paper captures the extent to which “current housing policies and legislation is lacking in its endeavor to provide sustainable human settlements”.
According to the 2022 Census, 88% of South Africans reside in formal dwellings, 8% in informal dwellings, and 8% in traditional dwellings. Unfortunately, people with lower incomes are having increasing difficulty in accessing the property market due to the current stringent lending regulations, as well as the increased cost of living, rising interest rates, and below-inflation salary increases leading to less disposable income. Almost a quarter of South Africans have to rely on social grants as their main source of income.