Abstract:
This research is a study of the housing situation of low-income civil servants in Ado - Ekiti, the capital city of Ekiti State, Nigeria. The aim of the study is to identify strategies and the functional approach for adequately housing these workers through public sector intervention.
The research examined a number of key features of the urban housing issues (including urbanization, culture, public infrastructure and services, housing finance and management, housing policy) which impinge on the provision of housing for low-income earners. As an investigative research, its data were obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary data were sourced through the survey of public housing schemes in Ado Ekiti, and the private sector housing occupied by the low-income civil servants. It also involved the study of government activities in housing in Ado - Ekiti, the study area. Secondary data were obtained from the University Library, the National Library at Akure, as well as numerous other private and governmental sources.
The data obtained were subjected to ciritical analysis in three tiers, namely; the uni-variate analysis, bi-variate analysis (chi-square test of independence and correlation), and multi-variate analysis. These enabled the development of statistical models pivotal for the realisation of the thesis goal of identifying regenerative strategies for housing the low-income civil servants.
The research identified core areas of public sector intervention instrumental to achieving the thesis goal. These include stimulating and sensitizing the private sector into greater participation in housing delivery as the research findings show that the two sectors (public and private) are intricately intertwined in housing delivery and are thus inseparable. The
public sector has a definite role to play in ensuring the optimum performance of the private sector for the development of the housing market. The public sector has to regenerate the local building materials industry, reorganize the housing finance sector, and ensure proper performance of public infrastructure and service. The livability of existing public housing schemes needs to be improved upon while new ones have to
be constructed.
