A two bedroomed house which was donated as a gift by President Uhuru Kenyatta but rejected by a Nakuru woman and her son has been handed over to a new beneficiary
Charles Macharia.
Macharia, a homeless man had been living at a church compound.
The man has three children living with a disability.
"I'm so happy being here and I'm so proud to have my own home now," Macharia said
on Sunday at a handover ceremony in Nakuru.
Prior to moving into the church compound, he was staying at a house provided for him by a chief in Mawanga area.
"Today you can be desolate and looked down upon but on the other hand God remembers you," Macharia said.
The house was handed over to him by Rift Valley Regional coordinator Mongo Chimanga on behalf of the government.
Mzee Macharia and his son in their new home on February 24, 2019. /BEN NDONGA
The house was built on Uhuru's orders after the woman's son thrilled the President with a moving poem in 2014 during Kenya Rifles pass-out at Lanet Barracks.
President Uhuru invited the woman, Damaris Wambui and her son to State House after the excellent performance and promised to pay his school fees and build his mother a house.
The boy was in class seven then but is now in Form Four.
"This (house) can't be what the president had in mind when he said he would give us a house. It is a shame for people to associate the President with such a house," Wambui said in a recent interview.
Since then, the boy and her mother have continued to live in a mud-walled single room house in Lanet.
Wambui survives by doing laundry, knitting sweaters and casual jobs in the neighbourhood.