Housing a lasting problem

HOUSING for ordinary Papua New Guineans, especially those in the low to middle income bracket, has often been an issue seriously not looked at by the government over the years.
The run-down state of many government department houses tells you all you need to know about the lack of consideration given their own departments and ultimately law makers and legislators on whom many of these decisions rest.
It is a problem that many families face and in spite of the building boom in some of our major centres, particularly the nation’s capital Port Moresby, it is fair to say that most citizens live somewhere between the margin that separates settlements from low cost basic housing.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the foreign workforce and affluent Papua New Guineans (politicians, managers, business men and women) and the middle class (say highly educated) occupying the best homes money can buy, while around them in every nook and crack sprout settlements virtually unchecked, populated by people who have next to no means for even the basics for a place of dwelling – services and amenities such as clean running water, electricity, a proper sewerage system in place and garbage disposal – are not freely available to those who live in these places.
An increasing trend one finds is that a good number of these settlement dwellers are actually formally employed and some even have tertiary level education and work over a wide cross section of the community in jobs in the private sector from banking to construction and in the public service from the police force to health and teaching.

Unfortunately, the acute lack of affordable homes and more to the point, reasonable rental rates has driven many to the settlements or crammed them into suburban homes with as many as two or three families to a residence.
This is the reality for many Papua New Guineans and the cry has been long and hoarse over the years but now with the expansion of the middle class, the demand for better quality homes is getting louder and louder from all corners.
Port Moresby is also widely known as one of the most expensive cities for housing across the Pacific, and tenants commonly face rental stress.
Providing adequate, quality and affordable housing has long been an issue for governments of most developing countries.
ABC last week in a news report ‘Think renting in Sydney and Melbourne is tough? Spare a thought for Papua New Guinea’ quoted Professor Eugene Ezebilo, head of the property development programme at the PNG National Research Institute new analysis on Port Moresby’s rental market, based on findings in a 2017 property survey, found a typical rental property cost about 120 per cent of household income. The government needs to regulate stringently the property market and the amounts of money and rates charged by landlords and property owners.
It seems the industry has the luxury of minimal state regulation to the obvious disadvantage of many.
If legislators could tighten the way the property rental markets are run and make employers bear some responsibility for housing their employees, then we should see more people living in decent homes.
As for settlements, this is another area the state needs to step in to make home ownership accessible for Papua New Guineans from all walks of life.
Anyone who works hard to earn a living deserves to have a place to call home.