The partnership between the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) and the City of Cape Town to upgrade and maintain the city’s estimated 57 000 units of rental stock will help to provide decent, secure and affordable accommodation to the people who live and work in the city, Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on April 15.
The NHFC will provide finance and the appointment and management of the database of contractors and suppliers, as well as provide business and technical support to them.
It has committed R150-million to the initiative and more than 200 units will be completed by July. This will provide decent and affordable accommodation to more than 400 households.
“What the NHFC is doing in the Cape Town Metro must be extended to other metros. Our development finance institutions must commit their resources towards the revitalisation of our inner cities and towards funding a mix of developmental projects to scale up social housing and affordable housing as well as student accommodation.
"This project will help to achieve urban restructuring, meet housing demand, create jobs and transform communities,” Sisulu said.
The national Department of Human Settlements has launched several social housing projects in Gauteng and the Western Cape, with the latest being Anchorage, in the City of Cape Town, and the Kempton Village, in the City of Ekurhuleni.
Sisulu challenged the NHFC, as funder of government national priority projects, to reach out to qualifying households in the low-to-middle income market through the Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme. The one-off financial assistance for qualifying beneficiaries ranges between R27 960 to R121 626.
Over the past 12 months, the NHFC has processed 2 815 applications and 2 120 of these were approved.
To date, more than R60-million has been disbursed to 1 136 beneficiaries and this has contributed to more than R1-billion home loans being approved by banking institutions, she said.