How FG will provide affordable housing with Family Homes Fund

The Managing Director (MD) and CEO of Family Homes Fund, Femi Adewole, has said the federal government is championing the cause for low-income earners to own their own homes through the establishment of the agency.

Mr Adewole who spoke at the Abuja International Housing Show, explained that the agency was established to provide social housing finance and to build 500 thousand homes in the initial stage at the cost of N2m each.

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He said agency was a joint partnership of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority with shares of 51 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.

The MD further said the agency would bring additional shareholders on board in 2022 and keep up with its mandate to finance homes that were affordable to those at the end of Nigeria’s economic pyramid.

He said, “The federal government, through the shareholders, gave a commitment of N500bn capital seed funding to finance these homes. This will make social housing possible by developing and offering financing solutions to housing developers, public or private, and the people who will buy and rent the home they built.

“The agency has made available N43bn to projects promoted by state governments, the private sector, developers and housing cooperatives to support social housing schemes.”

He noted that the by-effect of the housing project was to provide over 1.8 million jobs.

He explained that, “The major elements of FHF are geared towards ensuring affordable housing funds for developers. We have the National Social Housing Programme (NSHP); an offshoot of the Economic Sustainability Programme. The NSHP will be funded through a debenture from the CBN, and we expect that by the end of this year, 40,000 homes financed under the programme will be at various stages of development.

“‘The help to buy fund’ is another element which will provide access to low-income earners with loans to buy the houses they need.

“We will provide 40 per cent loan to the buyers on deferred payment, thus, in the first five years they won’t pay anything for the loan but will start paying back in the sixth year.”

He further said, “Another is the ‘Rental Housing Fund’ which is made to provide security of tenure for tenants with the opportunity to buy the houses they occupy at in the long run. This includes student rental accommodation. By the end of this year, we are expecting to put about N20bn of our money into a pilot student accommodation of about 6,000 hostel beds in four universities.”

According to him, the “Land Development Fund” is to provide infrastructure for residents in areas where they are not connected to services and roads, adding that the idea of the land development is to provide finance to estates or houses not connected to critical infrastructure in a bid to make them livable to the occupants.

He expressed optimism that the projects would be a thing of fruition with the assurance that, “As Nigerians, we have been disappointed so much that we are cynical of good things happening in the country. But at the Family Home Fund, we are committed to the responsibility of making homes affordable to Nigerians our mandate covers.”