In March, Lee attended the world’s most prominent international real estate investor conference, MIPIM, in Cannes, France where he was delighted to discover social housing is now being seen as a solution to the massive problem of slum dwelling globally, with myriad benefits for governments and societies.
This issue has been the team at Global Housing Solutions main focus over the last eighteen months. The assistant Secretary General of the United Nations’ keynote speech addressed the urgent need to develop housing solutions for the more than 1billion people living in slums around the world in order to reduce future economic, medical and security burdens on governments and societies.
The True Cost of Slums to Societies and Governments
Currently over a billion people live in slums, which are breeding grounds for social problems, disease epidemics and crime, as well as hotbeds for terrorist recruitment and training.
· This number is expected to increase to more than 1,500,000,000 by 2020.
· More than 33% of the population of Latin America
· More than 60% of the population of Asia
· And even more in Africa.
This is not news, we’re all aware of the poverty the world is afflicted by, what is news is that social housing is now being seen asthe solution in financial circles.
Governments’ Policy now Prioritizes Social Housing
The costs to governments of addressing these social issues are massive; in the US fighting terrorism alone, has projected budget of $240 billion annually. Governments’ policy is now driven by the need to provide housing as a proven way to prevent escalating costs to societies and governments.
As was re-iterated at MIPIM, governments are realizing it is far less expensive to provide housing solutions than to shoulder the economic, political, and social costs of violence, crime and disease that come from inaction. And the bottom line is, this vast social exclusion is not only detrimental to society but “also affects economic productivity and ultimately the competitiveness of nations.” (MIPIM Programme of Conference)
As a result many governments worldwide are now making funding available for social housing programs, and offering guarantees on donations put to work on these projects within their countries. In Costa Rica this year $250 million has been allocated for social housing funding by the National Mortgage Bank of Housing.
Global Social Housing Projects Identified in Costa Rica
One of our main foci at Global Social Housing is developing social housing projects that provide proven, guaranteed results for individuals within the communities. The fact that now social housing is being seen as the solution to so many societal problems means we will have more opportunities to work in countries with need, and with governments who back and guarantee our donations’ security. The importance of this work, and its priority for our company was brought home at the conference.
