Windhoek tackles housing crisis
Applications open
The tremendous pace of urbanization to cities like Windhoek exacerbate the ongoing housing crisis.
However, the City of Windhoek is stepping up, offering low-cost housing to residents through the Informal Settlement Upgrading Project.
The municipality's head of housing, Teunis Heunis, saidthat 600 low-cost houses have been erected in the first phase of this project with another 600 houses planned for the second phase.
Applications for the second phase recently opened.
"That's what we call in situ development; the house is physically built on someone's yard. Where someone owns land, but cannot build a house, we demolish the corrugated iron shack they may already have erected and build a brickhouse on their plot while they live there," he said.
Heunis believes this is an ideal opportunity for people who own serviced land but are not financially able to build a house. Individuals sign a 25-year lease-purchase contract with the municipality and pay the cost of their house back to the municipality in installments in this time.
"When this project was launched, the fact that we should not discriminate against any person was at the heart of the project. It doesn't matter if someone works for themselves, is a domestic worker or a pensioner. That is why we allow pensioners to become part of the project with their children as co-owners. The children then help to pay off the house, but the house still belongs to the pensioner," said Heunis.
However, non-payment remains a thorn in his flesh for this project, he said.
"Many people have lost their jobs, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, so payment is a problem. This project was established as a self-replenishing fund, to be able to help the next person with the money that is paid back to us by people who have already been helped," he said.
Persons interested in becoming part of the Informal Settlement Upgrading Project can direct inquiries to the Windhoek municipality or the National Housing Enterprise (NHE).