Family Homes Funds Parley Cooperatives On FG 300,000 Social Housing Program For Low Income Earners

In a bid to extend its affordable social housing program across Nigeria, the Managing Director of Family Homes Funds, Femi Adewole has revealed that the Fund is already in partnership with hundreds of housing cooperatives in Nigeria.
Speaking with AfricaHousingNews on Thursday during a meeting with the housing cooperatives, Adewole said that in designing their social housing program, they were very clear that addressing the off-take or what they call the demand side is a very critical factor for success. And one of the ways to achieve that was to work with housing cooperatives, and based on certain criteria.
‘’For us, there is no better way to achieve what we want than working with the very many cooperatives that we have in Nigeria. So our immediate step was to strike a partnership with the cooperative federation of Nigeria; basically to facilitate access to the over 100,000 cooperatives that we have in Nigeria, and working through them to mobilize demand to feed the program.
‘’So it is one thing to build 300,000 homes, it is another thing to actually find people who will buy those homes. I think the cooperatives provide us with a very strong and sustainable platform for mobilizing demand for those houses,’’ he said.
Speaking further, he said part of the essence of their meeting with the cooperatives is to finalize on the acceptable criteria for engagement and for the provision of these affordable houses for those who need them most.
‘’We already have our own ideas about the criteria for selecting them. Some of those include strong corporate governance. We want cooperatives that are well organized and well run. We want a very even spread across nation. We want cooperatives that are socially inclusive and not discriminatory against gender, tribe, religion or age.
‘’So we have a whole range of criteria to ensure that we are selecting partners that can deliver a balanced housing program. And we will put that all on the table and hopefully arrive at a conclusion regarding the criteria,’’ he said.
Having said that, he added that there is perhaps one item that is non-negotiable. And that is about the issue of affordability and for the rightful beneficiaries – low income earners.
‘’The social housing program is about providing homes for people on low income. That is the vision of this administration. So we will be working with cooperatives who are committed and passionate about providing homes for millions of Nigerians on low income,’’ he said.
Elaborating on the social housing program, Adewole said it is one of the key element of the Economic Sustainability Plan of the Federal Government of Nigeria as one of the key measures to alleviate the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic which has rendered many low income earners jobless and homeless.
According to him, the key objectives of the social housing program are to create jobs at scale, especially for low income earners whom may have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.
The second objective is to revitalize the local economy by using local content for housing development. In realising that, he said that 1,500,000 million doors, 1,800,000 windows, 7,800,000 door hinges and other building materials will be manufactured locally for the social housing program, giving a new lease of life to local industries. The third objective is to create affordable and sustainable homes for the low income earners.
“We want to all be on the same page in designing the program. We want to dialogue with cooperatives to agree on ways we can achieve these goals,” he said.
He said they have defined those earning 100,000 and below as the low income earners to benefit from the program.
He also alluded to the recent CBN announcement of N200billion initial funding for the social housing program. To achieve the intended results, he said the cooperatives must work together with them and do more than before.
“The fund comes to FHF through the ministry of finance, then we loan it out at a concessionary price to cooperatives to be able to provide houses for their cooperators once they meet the criteria for the loans.
“You’re then to build with prequalified people that has been vetted by FHF as SME delivery partners, especially young people. This is to spread the opportunity to as many people as possible. The delivery partners must be localized.
“The financing will be single digit of 8 to 9% per annum. You will be getting a land subsidy. The land will be provided by public sources like state governments and public services.
“When the houses are completed, individual members of cooperatives will buy the houses through a CBN facility, directly or through your cooperative mortgage banks that allow you to pay gradually for the houses.
“Cooperatives are significant partners in delivering the social housing program because you can help us to deliver the real needs.
“We need to build and delivered in bulk. That is why we are working with cooperatives. Working with cooperatives help reduce the risk because we can get early commitments from them.
“Cooperatives are guaranteed to get their houses at a subsidized cost. Free land and affordable financing.
“We have developed standard house types, affordable but super efficient. On the prices, the one bedroom will range between N1, 800,000 to N2,000,000; the two bedroom will be for N2,700,500, while the three bedroom will be N3,500,000,” he said.
He also mentioned that they have established a housing portal where the beneficiaries will access whatever information they need and also provide the information required from them.
He called for full maximization of the opportunity. “The last time we had this opportunity was in 1979 through the Shagari housing scheme which failed unfortunately. So we must make this one count.”