Mass Housing Schemes Delivery Strategies and the Challenges of Maintenance in Nigeria

Abstract

One of the housing initiatives implemented to overcome the current imbalance between housing demand and supply is mass housing. Unfortunately, some of these mass housing schemes in developing nations such as Nigeria are threatened by maintenance problems. It has been determined that maintenance is the only way to guarantee that a home serves the inte-nded purpose throughout its lifespan. Maintenance processes also directly affect legal, social, economic, cultural, and environmental issues (Nour, 2003). Maintenance is a type of repair and is distinct from renovation, remodeling, refurbishment, or replacement. Mass housing programs have been undertaken in Nigeria as a result of various housing construction paradigms and shelter delivery systems used by succeeding governments and the private sector. To address the severe housing crisis in cities, these repeating housing options have been developed as an addition to urban renewal. This is so that low-cost housing can be provided for the low-income segment of society, as was mandated by National Housing policy of 1991 (NHP), which placed responsibility for this on various levels of government. According to Oladimeji, Odunjo and Adeoye (2022), majority of these mass housing schemes are in a state of disrepair, lack of maintenance of these housing units may be attributed to the fact that, maintenance aspect was not consider during the planning, construction and delivery. It is against this background therefore that the study tried to examines some of the causes of maintenance problems, the challenges, with a view to making recommendations for a sustainable policy framework to make most of the existing mass housing schemes sustainable in conformity with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG