A Multi-Faceted Approach to Improving Public Services in Low-Income Housing in Windhoek, Namibia

Abstract

The characteristics of low-income housing in Namibia include severe inequality in housing standards, heavy reliance on non-office jobs, overcrowding, and poor infrastructure. This study uses a survey and semi-structured interviews to investigate the improved service delivery of this low-income housing. It explores this through the perspectives of community-based facilities management, sustainability, and enterprise development. In particular, the study examines opportunities for enterprise development, the willingness to participate in the production and management of public services, and the current state of public services in selected settlements in Windhoek. The results show that a lack of access to fire safety, disaster prevention, recreation, green spaces and tourist facilities are gaps in service delivery. Residents are willing to participate in both the co-production and management of public services. The study also found that residents have the appropriate skills to enable their engagement in management and production, and suitable governance structures are put in place to foster trust. The study recommends a policy that requires community visioning focused on public service improvement. It also calls for renewed trends in low-income people’s participation in public service development processes. The study’s contribution to existing knowledge on this subject is that it produced a multi-faceted framework for improving public services in low-income housing that is based on principles (and actions) of sustainability and policy (and planning) of land/housing access and has the potential to lead to public service-based community wellbeing.

A scoping review of community-based facilities management for public services through social enterprises in developing communities

“…Communities act as social enterprises when their participants work collaboratively to produce and exchange goods and services from the existing social structure of the community for organizing those activities (Carvalho et al, 2012). Engaging social enterprises in the development of communities allows for entrepreneurial growth and innovations (Adewunmi et al, 2023a(Adewunmi et al, , 2023b. According to van Belle et al (2020), social enterprises should not be exploitative, and the knowledge of urban governance systems is needed for accountability.…”

Physical Environment, Socio-Psychological Health, and Residential Satisfaction: A Link across Housing Types in the Unique Chinese Context

“…Housing inequality caused by governmental housing regimes lies at the root of socio-spatial segregation and exclusion in most cases [1][2][3][4][5][6]. This issue has been increasingly recognized as a corrodent to the social resiliency of cities and is a threat to human health [7][8][9] and people's life satisfaction [10][11][12][13][14]. This is especially true in the Chinese context, in which a unique political system and institutional forces operate, such as housing reform, which has played a critical role in many aspects of residents' lives [15].…”