We enable access to decent and affordable housing.

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Our Housing Approach

Providing Adequate and Affordable housing solutions

Habitat for Humanity Kenya is embarking on a 5-year (2020-2025) business plan that seeks to position the organization as one…

Habitat for Humanity Kenya is embarking on a 5-year (2020-2025) business plan that seeks to position the organization as one of the central players in providing Adequate and Affordable (AA) housing for low-income households in Kenya. HFH Kenya’s program focus is evolving from that of direct community intervention to an Integrated Systems Approach to Incremental Housing Processes (ISA2IHP).

The Integrated Systems Approach to Incremental Housing Processes underpins housing as the end product of putting together several elements responsible for supporting the provision of adequate and affordable housing. It considers housing as a long-term, incremental process, which builds on cross-sectorial interventions such as water, sanitation, energy access, land tenure, policy change, and construction at different levels of governance, actors, and regions.

Our housing approach supports the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and relies on partnerships and cooperation with multiple stakeholders, such as communities, local governments, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and the private sector. This approach to housing contributes to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, – “Making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”

Within selected settlements, HFH Kenya undertakes to provide housing construction and training, infrastructures, capacity building, advocating for increased access to land tenure security, and reducing risk and respond to disasters under four broad programmatic areas:

    1. Financing for owner-led construction
    2. Settlement-Based Practice
    3. Evidence-based advocacy for land titling and security of tenure and,
    4. Disaster Risk Reduction and Response

The Housing Need in Kenya

Country Context

Kenya’s population stood at 47.6 million in 2019, with an estimated annual growth of 2.3%, according to the World Bank.…

Kenya’s population stood at 47.6 million in 2019, with an estimated annual growth of 2.3%, according to the World Bank. Kenya is one the most developed countries in East Africa, with a young population as well as a dynamic and growing private sector.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s economic growth slowed down to 4.9% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 5.5% over the same period in 2019 due to heightened uncertainty following the outbreak of COVID-19.

The government has led a welcome push for new housing programs and projects since the adoption of Vision 2030 in 2008. Kenya’s 2010 Constitution stipulates that every person has a right to accessible, adequate housing and reasonable standards of sanitation, with country governments mandated to implement housing programs.  Public initiatives alone are not enough to create the systemic changes required to meet the growing housing deficit, as official statistics reveal:

  • 4 million Kenyans live in slums, representing about 56% of the country’s urban population.
  • Kenya has an annual housing gap of 250,000 housing units, but developers only build 50,000 units, with 49,000 of these targeting the upper-middle and high-end market segments, according to the World Bank. This leaves the low-income group greatly undersupplied, with a meager 1,000 units. Moreover, the incremental housing process used by many families to acquire homes is not accounted for in this data.
  • The least expensive home formally built by a developer in 2012 cost more than $15,000, which is more than ten times the average annual income of low-income households in Kenya ($1,340) (CAHF).
  • The urbanization rate of 4.4% in Kenya is more than double the global average of 2.1.

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