No fewer than 50,000 members of 800 Co-operative societies nationwide have indicated interest in the Social and Co-operative housing programme of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).
The Managing Director/Chief Executive of the Authority, Professor Mohammed Al-Amin made this known in an interview with reporters in Abuja.
He said many of the cooperatives came on their own upon knowing about the social and cooperative housing scheme of the Authority while the FHA is deliberately cultivating cooperatives in various parts of the country so as to strengthen them to tap into the programme.
Al-Amin said financially weak members of cooperative societies could latch on to the strength of the group to make real their home ownership dreams.
Al-Amin said the Authority was focusing on housing delivery for the most vulnerable groups in the society comprising the no-income, low-income and middle low-income earners.
To that end, he said the Authority had developed special packages for collaboration with non-governmental, Faith-based and Community-based organizations.
Al-Amin said that FHA was also working with research institutes for the development of local materials for the construction of houses.
In the effort towards making housing available, accessible and affordable, he said the Authority would provide primary infrastructure in its estates while also aiming as expandable housing intervention. Such intervention, he explained was aimed at building the minimum housing unit on a plot of land for prospective home owners to occupy while they would embark on gradual expansion as their incomes improve.
The FHA Chief Executive also disclosed that the Authority was initiating a savers scheme which would enable workers in the formal and non-formal sectors of the economy own their houses.
Also, he said the FHA was working with State Governments towards the implementation of a rent-to-own housing scheme which would convert rents paid by tenants for the eventual ownership of such houses.
Al-Amin said the preference of many Nigerians for bogus housing designs was one of the major impediments to home ownership adding that the Authority would embark on a campaign to get people to moderate such tastes.
He identified lack of housing finance for off-takers, poor conceptualization and haphazard land acquisition processes as the major causes of the collapse of the National Housing Programmes of the Shagari and Abacha administrations.
He said the FHA, conscious of these problems, was mobilizing all stakeholders to ensure the success of its housing programmes.
Al-Amin who was part of the Management Team of the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development that briefed President Muhammadu Buhari on the state of affairs in the housing sector said the President was passionate about the delivery of affordable mass housing for Nigerians and the rehabilitation of houses destroyed in the on-going insurgency in the North East.
He said the President requested for a viable road map for the implementation of Social Housing for the masses of Nigerians and adding that Buhari was emphatic about quick wins to enable the people benefit from governance.
On the North East programmes, he said the President said assistance would come from the G7 nations but directed immediate implementation of all proposals in that regard.