THE government of Sindh has set up a Peoples Housing Cell with a seed allocation of Rs2 billion. Managed by a veteran bureaucrat, the cell aims to launch several housing projects to extend at least a token assistance to the urban poor and other vulnerable groups in Karachi and other locations in the province.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has agreed to provide technical assistance, mainly in the form of training of the local manpower. Private builders will be engaged through public private partnership.

However, a few issues are worth looking into before a strategy is formed and the allocated money spent. The scale of housing problem, including housing backlog in both urban and rural areas has become exceedingly severe because of large-scale social dislocations due to political/ military conflict; loss of agricultural productively in South Punjab, Balochistan and interior Sindh; expansion of family sizes; housing backlog and exponentially rising cost of land / construction.

The best available option to deal with the housing problem is to constitute housing institutions for the poor with a comprehensive mandate. As experience elsewhere shows, these institutions build upon community initiatives such as local savings groups and evolve into larger entities at the city level.

The poor’s funds directly respond to the housing issues of the respective areas keeping in view the cultural and sociological sensitivities. From the institutional perspective, these funds have a strong mechanism of checks and balances as well as accountability since they function along participatory approaches.

The leadership of urban poor funds normally evolves from activists and professionals who have long careers in community work of varied kinds.

The supply of a few hundred housing units to some households from the allocated money will not solve the problem. Looking at the scale of problem, at least an estimated one trillion rupees are needed to address the existing needs. Neither the state nor corporate entities are in a position to create such large funds.

However, there are long-term solutions which can be structured by developing proper institutional mechanisms. The housing cell can undertake to develop a repository of land assets that can be allocated for housing development.

This is an intricate issue as the availability of state land is very limited while private land is prohibitively expensive. But a modest beginning can be made with this amount.

It can be transformed into a revolving fund to benefit a diverse clientele with varied requirements. For the poorest of the poor, targeted subsidies to a carefully identified client group is the answer.

Such models which have proved successful at the pilot level need to be adopted as a policy for scaling up.

Lower middle income groups may need credit lines to work out some options in the form of plots developed by informal sector developers or private entrepreneurs in various locations in the peri-urban or less advantageous urban locations. Middle income groups – including public sector employees – form another major category of potential beneficiaries.

Synergy with important actors such as exiting housing credit organisations, land development agencies, infrastructure agencies, professional bodies and regulatory agencies is the other key prerequisite. The housing cell can become a prime training institution for housing related tasks.

It is time to go beyond cosmetic approaches and build lasting institutions on firm footings. Real development in any sector has never been achieved otherwise.