Human and Operational Factors Influencing Completion of Housing Projects in Kenya: a Case of National Housing Corporation Projects in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Basic housing in urban areas is a fundamental human right that ensures security, habitability and safety of all urban residents. United nation estimates the shortage of houses globally at 40 percent across major cities. Many housing projects instigated by national governments never come to completion as a result of the challenges encountered during construction. This research aimed to ascertain human and operational factors impelling accomplishment of projects involving housing in Kenya, a case of National Housing Corporation (NHC) projects in Nairobi City County (NCC). The objectives were: to ascertain how staff competency influence completion of NHC housing projects in Nairobi County, to ascertain how stakeholder participation affect the efficiency with which NHC housing projects in Nairobi County are completed, to look into the contribution of resource availability on the efficiency with which NHC housing projects in Nairobi County are completed, to scrutinize the contribution of monitoring and evaluation on NHC completion of housing. This research assumed descriptive research design, where all 360 members of staff were targeted for this research. A representative sample of 36 respondents from the population was used following a purposive sampling method. The researcher used an organized questionnaire to collect data for the research. Prior to data collection, 10% of the sample population was used to conduct a pilot test in order to measure validity of the questionnaire. For analysis and presentation of data, both quantitative and qualitative (which includes, means, averages, combined variables) approaches were employed. Findings revealed that Staff competence very often affected the effective completion of housing projects with mean 4.64 and standard deviation 0.7237; stakeholder participation affects the effective completion of housing projects in Nairobi County with a mean of 4.933 and standard deviation 0.2494; resource availability affect the successful completion of housing projects with a mean of 3.373 and standard deviation 1.14; monitoring and evaluation affect the successful completion of housing projects with a mean of 4.1867 and standard deviation 0.9518. This research realized the consideration of important aspects of housing requirements during the completion of housing projects in Nairobi County. The researcher recommends that the county of Nairobi project managers take into consideration the four independent variables when carrying out the construction projects in order to guarantee success in completion.