By David Masango

The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has launched a policy guideline to enable municipalities to provide low-income target groups with rental houses with the option to buy over the years.

Dubbed the Municipal Social Housing Toolkit, the booklet will provide information on municipal social housing and the social housing sector as well as provide a framework to assist municipalities to write social housing policies.

Graham Richard, Salga executive director of governance, inter-governmental relations and municipal services, told BuaNews that the policy was targeting people who earned between R1 500 and R7 000 a month.

"These people do not qualify for the free government houses and are also excluded from formal funding (from banks), maybe because they do not have a credit record or may be blacklisted," he said.

Richard explained that the "toolkit" would allow for municipalities to work with social housing institutions and section 21 companies to access national government loan at low interest to develop social housing by either revitalising old buildings, converting old offices to residential units or building new settlements, which would be in the form of cluster houses.

He said the idea was to foster communal living in communities - thus the cluster format. Richard added that beneficiaries would rent the houses with the option to buy after five years. Another benefit for beneficiaries was that over the years they would be able to approach banks with their credit record from renting the houses, thus apply for housing loans and enter the formal housing market.

A statement from Salga explained the social housing toolkit resulted from government's "Breaking New Ground" document, a national strategic housing plan adopted by Cabinet in September 2004. The plan focuses on promoting an integrated society by developing sustainable human settlements and quality housing.

Part of the "Breaking New Ground" document is a social housing programme and its objectives are to facilitate the production of effectively managed institutional housing in the areas where demand for institutional or managed housing of all types exist, the statement said.

It said the plan also aims to contribute towards the achievement of urban restructuring and urban renewal through urban integration and impacting positively on urban economics.

To achieve the plan's objectives, Salga said the National Social Housing Policy; part of the social housing had been developed and approved.

Consequently a Social Housing Act would be developed and would provide a legal framework required for the regulation of social housing provision.

Source: BuaNews