The National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) has committed US $10.5m to increase and maintain housing units in the City of Cape Town in South Africa, currently estimated at 57000 units. NHFC will also do the appointment and management of the database of contractors and suppliers and provide business and technical support to them.
The Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu has commended the partnership between NHFC and the City of Cape Town and believes that the partnership will go a long way in providing decent, secure and affordable accommodation to the people who live and have come to work in the City of Cape Town.
The Minister said she is pleased that by July 2021 over 200 units would have been completed. This will provide decent and affordable accommodation to over 400 households. “What NHFC is doing in the Cape Town Metro must be extended to other Metros. Our development finance institutions must commit their resources towards the revitalization of our inner cities and towards funding a mix of developmental projects to scale up social housing and affordable housing as well as student accommodation,” said Minister Sisulu.
“Our sector plays a key role in stimulating the economy to produce much needed jobs and opportunities in our delivery value chains, especially for the designated groups. This project will assist us to achieve urban restructuring, meet housing demand, create jobs and transform our communities,” added Sisulu.
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Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP)
Over the past few months Minister Sisulu has launched several social housing projects in Gauteng and Western Cape, with the latest being Anchorage in the City of Cape Town and the Kempton Village in the City of Ekurhuleni. Minister Sisulu also challenged the NHCF, an agency of the Department of Human Settlements and funder of government national priority projects to reach out to qualifying households in the low-to-middle income market through their Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP). The once-off financial assistance for qualifying beneficiaries range between US $1,957.97 to US $8,517.18.
Over the past twelve months NHFC has processed 2815 applications and of these, 2120 were approved. To date over US $4.2m has been disbursed to 1136 beneficiaries and this has triggered over US $70m home loan approved by banking institutions.
