D.Phil. (Engineering Management) / One of the greatest challenges faced by the post-1994 South African democratic government is an immense backlog and shortage of housing for poverty-stricken South Africans. Since 1994, the government has embarked on aspiring housing programmes in order to engage in mass delivery of housing, which was done to fulfill the vision of adequate housing for all, as reflected in the South African National Housing Policy Framework. Over the last seventeen years, the programmes have delivered more than 3 million houses to families, who had no proper housing previously, providing more than 13 million people with secure homes; thus ensuring that essential services were made available to advance the lives of ordinary people. This research investigated and modeled subsidised low-income resident’s satisfaction. The primary aim of the research was to model to what extent dwelling unit features, neighbourhood features, building quality, services provided by government, beneficiary participation, needs and expectations predict the occupants’ residential satisfaction, which were classified as the exogenous variables. A conceptual integrated holistic residential satisfaction model was developed based on the theory developed from the literature review and the Delphi Study findings. The Questionnaire Survey was conducted for the purpose of validating the conceptual model. The survey was conducted in three metropolitan municipalities and one district municipality in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Results from the investigation pertained to three broad areas. The first results related to theory on housing studies. The findings were that the study addressed the lack of theoretical information about which factors are most significant in predicting resident satisfaction in subsidised low-income housing. The findings also revealed the theory that low-income housing occupants’ satisfaction is multi-faceted and that the latent variables thus lead to residential satisfaction outcome variables which could be used for residential satisfaction measurement. The second set of findings relates to the Delphi Study. The findings from this study were that a number of factors (dwelling unit features, neighbourhood features amongst others), considered to be paramount determinants of residential satisfaction in South Africa low-income housing are similar to the determinants in other cultural contexts. Further findings from literature and the Delphi Study indicated that subsidised low-income housing residential satisfaction could be a six-factor model defined by the influence of dwelling unit features...

This dissertation compares the levels of housing satisfaction between the site and services and informal settlement upgrading projects. In South Africa, the government embarked on the incremental approach to housing as a way of addressing housing challenges such as slow delivery rate, poverty and budgetary constraints. Within incremental housing polices, site and services and informal settlement upgrading housing projects are two housing delivery methods that are being used to provide housing to low income households. One of the challenges with the implementation of incremental housing delivery method in South Africa has been over-emphasis on the implementation of site and services at the expense of informal settlement upgrading housing projects. The broad aim of this dissertation is to compare which of the two delivery approaches yields higher levels of satisfaction. The research method employed in the study was Normative Style of comparism which is used to compare the levels of satisfaction and usefulness of housing to the user. To evaluate the levels of housing satisfaction between the site and services and informal settlement upgrading, the researcher set indicators of housing satisfaction, specifically location, the size of the dwelling unit, the quality of building materials, residential quality, security of tenure and the ability to use a house for income generating opportunities. Polices such as Chapter 13 of the National Housing Code (2009) and the Breaking New Ground (2004) indicate a significant shift in respect of informal settlement upgrading. The study’s findings showed that there are higher levels of housing satisfaction in the informal settlement upgrading housing projects than in the site and services because, beneficiaries make conscious choices about where to locate their housing. It emerged that beneficiaries satisfaction with the choice of specific settlements was usually linked to their livelihood strategies for example, proximity to jobs, cost of transport and cost of living. Such satisfaction was not forthcoming in poorly located sites and services schemes, whose strength was therefore only on their formality, secure tenure and basic services. The contribution of this study is not only to highlight circumstances that make housing satisfactory but also to ensure that informal settlements upgrading becomes entirely practiced on an equal basis as site and services. / Thesis (M.Housing)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

In an attempt to improve the quality of lives of its citizens, the South African government has introduced low-cost housing projects through the Reconstruction and Development Programme. This is supported by the relevant policy framework and the Constitution. Many historically disadvantaged communities in the urban areas have benefitted from the low-cost housing programmes initiated by government. The community of Joe Slovo, which has houses which were built between 2008 and 2010, in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is one of them. However, concerns about the poor quality of some of the houses delivered through government’s low-cost housing programmes have been expressed. These concerns were attributed to the defects which tend to show up in some of the houses, shortly after they have been built. In view of such concerns and the importance of the optimal utilization of the country’s limited resources, the author decided to undertake this study. In this study he focused on the perceptions of the beneficiaries of the houses delivered through the Joe Slovo housing project in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The main focus was on the perceptions about the quality of the recently acquired houses. The study revealed that not all beneficiaries were satisfied with the quality of their houses. Hence recommendations for addressing this scenario are made.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The major question which was dealt with in this thesis was exactly what the experience of the Muncie residents who are currently a part of the Muncie HOPE VI Program has been. I explored through a series of five in-depth interviews the feelings and true opinions of these residents. We discussed issues such as: what life was like for them in Munsyana, how they felt when they heard that they were being relocated, how life has been for them since they were relocated, and where and how they would have changed the process for the better.Many of the residents feel that relocation was a positive step in their lives. The residents continually stated that there were still things that were not quite where they should be with the program; however, they would not change their current living situations for anything. / Department of Urban Planning

The principal objectives of this study were to determine: a) the direct effect of an apartment manager’s leadership style and b) the direct and indirect effects of functional health, morale, and social activity on residential satisfaction using a path model. The sample for this study consisted of residents of government subsidized housing for the elderly in Virginia. The majority of the respondents were widowed, white females with and average age of 73. The sample was drawn from 10 apartment communities selected from a list of 19 communities containing 2,156 apartments. A self-administered instrument was developed, pretested, and revised as needed, and sent to one-half of the residents in each of the 10 communities. The responses were scored to determine the respondents' levels of residential satisfaction, perception of the apartment manager•s leadership style, level, of social activity, morale, and functional health. A total of 210 usable responses were obtained from the initial distribution of 582 instruments and one follow-up mailing. The total response rate was 36.1%. Leadership style emerged as having the strongest direct effect on residential satisfaction, .329, followed by social .222, morale, .071, and functional health, -.067. The R² was .262. The model was refined, positioning functional health, morale, and social activity as exogenous variables with leadership style as the intervening variable. The analysis was conducted separately for the group of respondents with eight years or less of education and for the group with more education. The total effect of every bivariate relationship was greater for the group with less education. The total effect of leadership style on residential satisfaction was .446 for the less educated group and .267 for the group with more education; for social activity, .371 and .178: for morale, .134 and .019; and for functional health, -.093 and .014, respectively. The R²s were .327 and .102, respectively. Leadership style of the manager has a strong direct effect on the residential satisfaction of the respondents as does their level of social activity. The total effect of morale and functional health on residential satisfaction is minor with functional health having a negative effect. The residential satisfaction of those with less education was more strongly affected by all variables than were the group with less education. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management