By Akanimo Sampson
For employable job seekers in Yobe State, one of the front line states of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, the massive affordable housing scheme of Family Home Funds is turning out to be Nigeria’s new Better Life programme for previously unemployed youths who are finding in the housing scheme a source of livelihood.
The housing scheme has offered over 8,700 jobs in Yobe in spite of the menace of Boko Haram. Yobe State Government signed $30 million deal with Family Home Funds, a public housing finance company, to construct 2,600 affordable housing units across the state. The deal was signed by the state’s Solicitor-General, Hadiza Alkali, and the Managing Director of Family Homes, Femi Adewole, in the presence of Governor Mai-Mala Buni.
According to the agreement, the houses will be built in seven locations around the state. They will comprise of two and three-bedroom bungalows to be completed in 18 months. According to the governor, the mass housing schemes reflected the policy of his administration to “provide quality and affordable housing to the people of our state.
Governor Buni added that the project is also in with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the houses will be spread across the three senatorial districts of Yobe and the state capital, Damaturu.
“We believe that affordable housing is a key marker of social progress. When people have comfortable accommodation, they are more likely to have the right frame of mind to engage in meaningful socio-economic activities”, said Governor Buni.
500 units will be built in Yobe Zone A with Gaidam and Buni-Yadi Towns having 250 units each. In Zone B, 300 units in Potiskum and 200 units in Damagum Town of Fune Local Government area will be constructed while in Zone C, the houses will be developed in Gashu’a Town with 250 units, Nguru with 200 units and Machina with 150 units.
The state capital, Damaturu will have 1000 units of the houses. Of this number, 500 will be sited along Potiskum road, 250 along Maiduguri road and the remaining 250 units along Gujba road. Family Homes is providing financing and technical support to the state government, with a repayment period for the financing loan at 10 years.
Family Home is an initiative of the Nigerian government set up last year as a partnership between the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority as founding shareholders to provide affordable housing for millions of Nigerians in low to medium-income groups.
It was registered in 2017 and commenced operations in 2018. It is Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest housing fund focused on affordable homes for Nigerians on low income. It is a social housing initiative promoted by the Federal Government as part of its social intervention programme with initial shareholding by the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.
Over the next four years, the company aims to invest up to N1.3 trillion, around $3 billion in the development of 500,000 homes for people on low income. In the process, the company also aims to create up to 1,500,000 jobs and enable homeownership through its creative production.
After about a year without a job, Jibril is now very excited to take off his safety helmet and talk about the opportunity of earning a decent living. He was sitting on a pile of concrete slabs, and sipping from a bottle of water. Jibril, a graduate of engineering is one of the thousands employed on Family Homes affordable housing project sites in Yobe.
‘’About a year ago, I was just at home, not sure where my next meal would come from. I am sure you know the struggle most people go through to find job. Luckily for me, a friend spoke to me about Family Homes Funds and their affordable housing projects in Yobe . He told me workers were needed on site. That is how this new chapter of my life started. Here I am today, a site engineer, in company of so many workers, building homes for people like my parents who do not earn so much’’, says Jibril.
Building over 2,350 affordable homes across 26 sites in Yobe for low to middle income earners, Family Home has created well over 8,700 direct and indirect jobs in the process, creating early socio-economic impact in the northeast state. For over a year now since construction works started, these projects have become major sources of employment for thousands of workers.
Jibril is hard at work on a project site in Damaturu, where at least 900 homes (of the first phase) are ready for first time homeowners in May 2021. At a time when the fear of unemployment is real, Jibril’s immediate concerns are anything but that.
Jibril’s story becomes familiar as one moves from one project site to another across different locations in the state where thousands of jobs have been created for contractors, developers, engineers, site supervisors, admin staff, property managers, artisans, masons, plumbers, electricians, iron benders, foremen, gardeners, laborers, cleaners, tillers, storekeepers, security guards, food vendors, suppliers, and other products and service providers tied to the construction sites.
Their stories validate Family Home’s belief that when building affordable housing communities in a vast country like Nigeria with significant housing deficit, job creation will always be an integral part of that, and people like Jibril bring such vision to life. Its Social Impact Tracker shows that each site in Yobe employs an average of 320 people – directly and indirectly – guaranteeing economic sustenance for several families and their extended beneficiaries.
According to Jibril, the impact of this opportunity is much more than the employment it provides. As foods are being put on the table, crimes are also being reduced in many parts of the state. ‘’Imagine if these projects were not happening. All these workers, both the educated and uneducated ones would have been idling away, and probably considering the option of crime. So, for me, the impact of this is very huge. The economic benefits aside, it has reduced the level of crime in Yobe state.’’
Laid off from his former place of employment because of the peculiar economic challenges that trailed COVID-19, 26-year-old Kabir, is now working as an artisan on another Family Home project site in Potiskum. He endured a torrid time of joblessness that has now ended because of the opportunity that Family Home project in Yobe has offered.
Confident about gaining employment on any of Family Home’s project sites, a lot of people like Kabir have gone to learn new skills that are needed for the construction works. Recently – and given the high demand for skilled labour in the state – over 1,000 artisans were trained in different skills and will soon join the other workers on-site as Family Home projects in the state enter their second and third phases.
The significance of these developments is that the job opportunities continue even after the construction work has been completed. There are continuous needs for facility managers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, gardeners and cleaners, security guards, and of course, there are jobs and household incomes that will be generated by small businesses that will spring up in the estates when families move in.
Due to the untiring efforts of Family Home, homes are conspicuously standing in almost every local government of states keying into the scheme. Undoubtedly, the socio-economic impact of the organisation in Yobe is obvious to everyone, including the state government, which has described Family Home Funds Ltd as their biggest and most successful partner.
‘’We are happy that this partnership has worked well, and we also look forward to more. A lot of jobs have been created and a lot of local materials are also being used’’, Secretary to Yobe State Government, Baba Malam Wali, says of the Funds’ impact in the state.
In May 2021, the first phase comprising of 1,800 homes will be completed and ready for new families across different locations in Yobe. This will be a lifetime opportunity for civil servants, members of cooperatives, and artisans like Kabir to own their own homes in an environment that offers opportunities for modern living without the need to break a bank.
These stories are a fulfillment of Family Home’s vision of providing homes for the most vulnerable groups in the society, and employment opportunities for those who are losing faith because of economic challenges. As projects enter more phases and into more states across Nigeria, the number of jobs created by Family Homes Funds through its projects and partnerships will only continue to increase.
Across Family Home projects in states like Delta, Nasarawa, Ogun, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Borno, Adamawa and others, the constant sentiment of most of the workers, now totalling some 64,000, is that they experience both an engaging place to work and the motivation to build structures that the owners will be proud to call home, exactly the difference Family Home Funds was created to make.
