The housing crisis in urban Tanzania

Tanzania is urbanising at one of the fastest paces in the world, and that comes with its own challenges in terms of housing for the low-income market.

This challenge is not being discussed enough, and, as Albert Nyiti, assistant researcher at Ardhi University, and Mariam Genes, a PHD candidate, recently established in a study published in Iglus, our beautiful language Kiswahili may have some thing to do in the whole issue of inadequate housing in Tanzania.

A drive around the countryside of Tanzania will show incredible evidence that rapid urbanisation is going on, and that what is missing is structured financing to support this pace.

It is not too far from the truth to note, as Nyiti and Genes found out, that our cultural trait including Kiswahili may well be at the centre of the problem of lack of affordable, well-planned structural housing to meet the needs of the citizens.

In Tanzania, it is not uncommon for random people one meets in social gatherings, including weddings, bars and sports gatherings, to conclude, when they ask where one resides that, “Ohh Umejenga Makongo Juu” to mean every man (worthy the moniker man), must have constructed a house for his family.

It is seen as a rite of passage and anyone who is still living in a rented house at a certain age is seen as a failure. Such terms as baba mwenye nyumba (man who owns a house), have become common place and determine how the society looks at one.

Global and continental statistics all point towards a housing deficit which then brings us to the questions, how do we deal with the rapid urbanization Tanzania faces and in the same deficit how do we confront the genie in the bottle, that of lack of adequate structure finance that can provide affordable housing to meet the growing deficit?

If we continue in the same trajectory, we are allowing growing roots of corruption to capture the body politic f a nation as young as Tanzania is because every young person, in their millions dreams of owning a house but a huge percentage do not have the means.

The ideal of an affordable house does not just end with a roof over one’s head. It includes the fact that the house (nyumba) is part of many in a well-planned housing area (makazi bora) there goes Nyiti and Genes findings in this subject matter.

These well planned structural housing must have access roads, water, electricity and common services like schools, markets and shopping as well as , not to forget play grounds and sporting facilities.

We have been structured by society to build at all costs. Every young man who graduates and gets a job feels the pressure to rob the employer in order to build a house and find a place of supposed honour of our society.

Remember one of the Sustainable Development Goals is on Sustainable Decent Housing. The SDG no 10 on Decent Housing is so important Habitat declares that achieving decent housing then contributes to achieving all other 16 SDG goals. That is how powerful decent affordable housing is.

Reference has been made to the newly built Magomeni Kota flats and how the residents of the old Magomeni Kota have adjusted to living in the decent houses built by government decree.

No known research has been conducted based on which we can establish findings and draw lessons but media reports say residents who were to benefit have been renting out the houses citing inability to live in them.

The availability of and access to housing finance is a significant determinant in a household’s decision to acquire, build and or rent a house and Africa statistics point at only less than 15 percent of those who need a house able to build one.

On the supply side the Tanzania Building Agency and all other developers need financial resources to develop affordable housing for the mass market, resources which are hard to come by.

Even where such resources are available, awareness levels are low as people go for other sources other than formal regular finance opting for kupiga hela (find the money illegally, it doesn’t matter) approach.

Welcome to the world of Habitat for Humanity Tanzania.