President William Ruto's administration plans to construct 200,000 to 250,000 housing units each year.
This is aimed at availing more affordable houses in the country and reducing the number of people in informal settlements.
Speaking at the ground breaking ceremony of Mavoko affordable housing project in Machakos county, the president said this ambition is in line with the dream of having more affordable houses in the country.
“Our aim is to construct these houses in the country so that the ordinary citizens can be able to get a decent living environment at an affordable rate,” Ruto said.
Ruto said that the project will positively impact many in the country since becoming a house owner in Kenya remains costly with only a few people able to afford to purchase a house. e vulnerable get mortgage by giving them funds to facilitate the processes.
“The cost of owning a home or getting a comfortable house serves as a challenge to many, majority of our people live in poverty and therefore they cannot be able to get better houses, we will work with them to ensure they get funds to pay mortgages,” Ruto added.
According to the head of state, 6.5 million people in Kenya live in informal settlements while those on mortgage are less than 40,000.
He said at least 1.5 million people in the country should be paying mortgages to become home owners.
“Most of the houses being constructed today are houses that cannot be afforded by an ordinary citizen and that is why we have said we will be constructing houses that are affordable to them,” he said.
The affordable housing program was among the former government's Big Four Agenda, alongside food security, universal health, and manufacturing.
He said in a bid to control climate change the affordable housing programme will be adhere climatic compliant
“We have agreed as the government that we wont be having projects that are not climate smart nor climate change compliant. All these houses will have green spaces and all necessary procedures followed,” he added.
The President urged all counties to work with the ministry of housing in order to achieve the dream of affordable housing.
He said 15 counties have already allocated land for the affordable housing project.
The president said the project will create job opportunities for the locals.
