Difficulties encountered in community involvement in delivery under the new South African housing policy

The new South Africa housing policy was announced in 1994 and soon after its principal financial and administrative mechanism — a capital subsidy — was introduced. As an integral part of the policy the new government set itself a target of providing one million low cost houses in five years. The first subsidy mechanism to be implemented, and the mechanism with most delivery to date, is based on projects with community partners — called the “project-linked subsidy”. How this situation arose, what was the success in practice in involving communities, and what are the current attitudes to community involvement in state-assisted housing delivery are some of the issues examined in this paper. While the paper briefly describes the housing policy and attempts to update the reader on the situation concerning subsidy delivery up to early 1999, it focuses on the difficulties experienced with community involvement in developing low cost housing projects primarily in the period 1993–97, drawing on the experience of a development agency working with a number of communities throughout the country. It also reviews the tendencies in subsidy allocation and general delivery, and makes some wider observations on the possible role of communities in the housing delivery process in future.