NHC says it has delivered more than 50,000 homes as it targets 110,000 under 2023-2027 plan
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Kenya's National Housing Corporation says it has handed over more than 50,000 homes since it was established in 1953 and now manages over 3,000 rental units, with a strategic plan target of 110,000 additional units delivered or facilitated by 2027.
The National Housing Corporation (NHC) has delivered more than 50,000 homes across Kenya since it was created as the Central Housing Board in 1953, and now manages more than 3,000 housing units nationwide, managing director David Mathu told The Star. The state corporation is one of the implementing agencies of the government's affordable housing programme and also runs its own stock outside the new scheme.
According to its 2023-2027 strategic plan, the NHC aims to directly deliver or facilitate the construction of 110,000 additional housing units through collaborations on sites across the country. Mathu said the corporation sells completed houses outright within 90 days or through its tenant purchase scheme, which runs for between five and 18 years, and that its rents remain competitive against the private market.
The corporation's footprint spans several flagship schemes. The Ngara project in Nairobi comprises 1,370 units, while the contractor is racing to complete 4,800 units in 11 blocks at the Mathare Boma Yangu Phase II site. The NHC's Langata estate has six phases totalling 987 houses, where the corporation has built a link road to Ngong Road, improved water supply and is rolling out CCTV coverage with the residents' association.
At Park Road Estate, where residents bought under the tenant purchase scheme, the NHC this year undertook an infrastructure upgrade that included a caretaker's house for round-the-clock on-site presence, a one-million-litre underground water tank and the rehabilitation of three boreholes. Mathu said the corporation set aside an initial Sh1 billion for the affordable housing programme before the Affordable Housing Bill was signed into law on 19 March 2024, and took the president to launch its first project outside Nairobi, in Homa Bay, in January 2023, where the initial 110 units have been completed and handed over.
The NHC is also supporting the Affordable Housing Board in setting up and running a tenant purchase scheme for the national programme, seconding its acting loans manager to the board during the formative stage. Beyond housing, it signed a Sh90 million agreement with Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology in February for a lecture halls complex seating 1,400 students, and operates what Mathu described as the biggest factory in East and Central Africa producing expanded polystyrene used in walls and slabs to cut construction costs.
Kenya needs about 200,000 housing units a year, with roughly 60 per cent of urban residents living in slums and other low-quality housing, according to the article. Mathu said government housing projects are built to high standards, arguing that volume must be matched by quality within cost-efficiency limits.