Factors influencing provision of quality housing: a case study of Mandera town

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the factors influencing provision of quality housing in Mandera town, Kenya. The study was guided by four objectives focusing on the factors that determine whether the cost building materials influences provision of quality housing in Mandera, to determine whether availability of land influences provision of housing quality housing in Mandera, to establish whether size of population influences provision of quality housing in Mandera and to find out how government policies influence provision of quality housing in Mandera. The literature reviews focused on the concept of the State and Social Policy at the Service of Capital- a Marxist View. The study adopted the descriptive survey as the research design. The target population included all the households in Mandera town. The sample size was 364 household heads in Mandera Town. The study showed that the maximum numbers of people in a household were 10 and a minimum of 1 (one) implying that the social amenities in the area of residents‟ were strained by a big number of people found in a household. On whether the residents of Mandera County experience housing problems, the study found that there are several problems experienced by the residents of Madera town due to poor housing. Some of the problems experienced include living standards as attested by 95% of the respondents, health problems shown by 91% of the respondents and work conditions indicated by 84% of the respondents. When the respondents were probed on health problem they encounter, they indicated that due to congestion in the houses they contract communicable diseases. On whether the cost of building materials influenced the quality of housing, 80% of the respondents said that the cost of building materials was very high in Madera town compared to other town. That implied that the cost of building houses was very high making the cost of building houses very high. This could be due to transport cost considering that Madera town in very far away from Nairobi or Thika where most of the building materials are sourced from. The other objective sought to establish the whether population size influence the quality of housing. The respondents were therefore asked to give their opinion on whether population size affects quality of housing. As earlier indicated in Table 4.5 there are a maximum number of ten people who live in a house. This affects the quality of housing in relation to provision of facilities such as water, electricity and sanitary services. The study also sought to establish the government policies that affect quality housing. The respondents were asked whether they are aware of government policies while 27% said that they are aware of such policies. Some of the policies that were given by the respondents include, restricted building were people cannot build houses in some places hence making people build temporary houses that compromises the quality of housing.