The Chamber of Real Estate’s (CRE) continued advocacy for a social housing scheme is a significant step towards addressing the pressing housing needs of the Ghanaian populace. Since its launch, the Chamber has had its short-term objective to champion this cause as part of the vision of demonstrating its commitment to social responsibility and urban development.
Despite their challenges concerning quantity and quality, Ghanaian housing policies have been mainly focused on the government sector with few interventions in the public domain. Recent developments in the real estate industry have seen an accelerated increase in private property ownership mostly with pricing above the average Ghanaian income earner’s capacity. Consequently, this has widened the social gap in many ways posing significant challenges of which the rising housing deficit is key to note.
The recent partnership of the CRE with the Chartered Institute of Realtors (CIR) has aided in heralding support for the initiation of this scheme with several strategic blueprints underway in achieving this feat. As part of this advocacy charge, the chamber is focused on providing affordable housing to mitigate the social impact of the housing challenges in the country. The goal therefore on the part of the Chamber is to ensure a focus on specific needs such as affordable rental options for low-income families or programs to improve existing informal settlements, support the development of public-private partnerships for housing projects, advocating for streamlined regulations and incentives for developers to build affordable housing and supporting programs to train the needed skilled labour for construction and maintenance of affordable housing units. This the Chamber of Real Estate believes will be the headway to attaining the drive.
By leveraging collective expertise and existing resources, the chamber extends its call for support to private institutions, developers, traditional leaders, public institutions and the government to rally behind this clarion call to alleviate this pressing societal challenge.