Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA (DVS) / The Reconstruction Development Programme (RDP) housing program was instituted to provide
South Africans with quality housing that meet their basic needs. For people, fortunate enough to
receive RDP houses, numerous complaints were raised. With government's focus on quantitative
housing delivery, there have been qualitative shortcomings and the perceptions are that the
constructed houses are of very low quality and do not meet the needs of the occupants.
Consequently, the quality of housing constitutes the physical condition of housing as well the
perceptions of occupants. However, since perceptions of housing quality are context specific and
differs from one person to the other and across cities/countries, what therefore constitutes as
housing quality is highly subjective. Also, despite the increased discussion on the quality of
housing and people's perception of it, most empirical research on housing has been undertaken in
the larger metro areas while there is not much focus on housing in small towns. The purpose of
this the study was to explore the perceptions of RDP beneficiaries on the housing quality in the
small community of Nollothville, Northern Cape. Since housing is important as it satisfies many
different human needs, a case study approach was adopted and Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of
needs was used as a theoretical framework to guide this study.
Research conducted in Nollothville reveals that the RDP houses especially the first phase of the
RDP houses are of sub-standard quality. Both primary and secondary resources were used to obtain
data. The study used a semi-structured interview guide as a data collection tool while the
questionnaire was used to solicit the magnitude of RDP beneficiaries' perceptions of the RDP
houses and, lastly, observations were conducted to validate these findings. Findings revealed that
although the RDP houses were well received by the recipients, many complained about the substandard
quality of these houses and that the houses do meet the criteria for quality housing. The
following perceptions raised by most of the study participants regarding the quality of the houses
included unstable foundation, poor quality roofing; poor quality doors or no doors inside the house;
cracking floors; no bath or shower, weak and poor-quality toilets. Also, since many of the houses
were in such bad conditions there was a struggle to cope with the financial upkeep of the houses.
Based on previous research conducted in other provinces, the study concludes the RDP houses are
the of the same sub-standard quality as the houses found in the other provinces.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6360 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Dunn, Charnelle Candice |
| Contributors | Karriem, Abdulrazak |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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