HOUSING THE URBAN POOR IN NIGERIA THROUGH COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION USING LESSONS FROM NAIROBI KENYA (Published)
Migration of people to urban areas from the rural areas usually comes with its challenges in terms of infrastructural requirement and housing to cater for growing population. One of the challenges for the urban dwellers in Nigeria is that of adequate housing. The inability of the government to meet this demand has seen the people concerned seeking alternative solutions to housing need. The resulting settlements are usually unplanned hence becoming a challenge for government to manage in terms of providing infrastructure facilities. With the growing incidence of global warming and the attendant increase in flooding in most urban areas of Nigeria, especially between year 2000 and 2013, the safety of the people who live in slums have become a concern to the state governments due to issues of flooding and collapsed buildings. Government usually evicts such people and clear the settlement; however the people simply relocate to another area. The aim of this paper is to examine how community participation can be used to provide housing for the urban poor based on their living requirement, drawing from the experience of selected case studies from Kenya. The research method adopted for the study is a qualitative research method using case studies of selected communities in Kenya and selected communities in Nigeria. A comparative analysis is drawn with these communities. The research concludes by proposing how community participation process should be incorporated into provision of housing for the urban poor
Keywords: Community Participation, Housing, Infrastructure, Settlement, urban poor
Housing the Urban Poor in Nigeria through Low-Cost Housing Schemes (Published)
This paper discusses a strategy and functional approach for the provision of low-cost housing for the urban poor in Nigeria. It notes the rapid rate of urbanization occurring in Nigeria, which is due mainly to massive rural-urban drift, and explosive urban population growth. A major consequence of this occurrence has been the deterioration of housing situation in the urban centres, manifested in severe shortages of housing units, and overcrowding in poor quality buildings that are situated in degraded environment. The urban poor constitute the vast majority of urban dwellers and they are in a disadvantaged economic position to build for themselves and are generally unable to make effective demand of existing housing. Housing this urban population is a major thrust of sustainable urban development. This paper asserts that a strategy for achieving the goal of adequately housing the urban poor is extensive mass housing development employing indigenous materials and methods, and involving the target population from policy making through programme execution. This is a bottom-up, participatory approach that will ensure the sustainability of the housing development. A case study, State Housing Estate, Oke-Ila, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria in which indigenous materials were used in some buildings, was examined in the paper. The paper also looks at experiments with indigenous materials in the construction of model low-cost houses, and these include the Pampomani Housing Estate in Maiduguri, Borno state, Nigeria, and Yakatsari resettlement scheme in Kano, Nigeria. The paper examines earth architecture as a relevant indigenous technology and recommends its use in housing the teeming poor majority in Nigerian urban centres.
Keywords: Approach, Housing, Poor, Strategies., Urbanization