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Fund in talks with varsities on staff, student housing

By Chinedum Uwaegbulam
25 February 2019   |   3:16 am
Towards expanding campus housing, two premier universities have begun discussions with the Family Homes Fund (FHF) to explore areas of partnership in developing affordable housing for staff and students as well as hostel construction. The universities are University of Lagos and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The fund is also in talks with Lagos State government…

Ahmadu Bello University

Towards expanding campus housing, two premier universities have begun discussions with the Family Homes Fund (FHF) to explore areas of partnership in developing affordable housing for staff and students as well as hostel construction.

The universities are University of Lagos and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The fund is also in talks with Lagos State government and Echostone to work on the Lagos Housing project.

The Ebonyi State government has also donated land in Abakaliki to develop 1,200 homes.

Senior officials of the organisation said it is intensifying its efforts in providing as many houses as possible for low- income Nigerians.

Through a combination of these activities, the Family Homes Fund aims to create or support up to 1,500,000 jobs by 2023 making a real difference to the quality of life of their families and the economy.

The organisation, which is the largest affordable housing focused fund in sub Saharan Africa is embarking on projects in six geo political zones and FCT.

The projects include the millennium city in Kaduna which has about 650 homes, the royal city in Kano 757 homes, in Asaba, Delta state about 620 homes, Ogun state about 1, 074 homes and FCT about 580 homes.

Already the project 1 and 2 in Grand Luvu, Nasarawa state has been completed.

Work is currently ongoing in Kaduna, where the state government donated land for the construction of 500 homes.

The Akwa Ibom state government has also donated land and signed MoU with family homes funds for the construction of 5000 low income houses.

FHF is in the process of signing a partnership agreement with iBuild-an international technology company to capture data on number of jobs created by FHFL investment

The Managing Director Family Homes Funds, Mr. Femi Adewole in an interview said: “We have a strong commitment. We have invested over N20 billion in housing projects to support Nigerians who are earning below N100, 000’’.

’We are also providing financing for developers who will build homes ranging between N2.5 million to N5 million.

“In addition, we are providing some assistance to the buyers of those houses and we are given them a deferred loan for up to 40 per cent cost of the houses’’.

Apart from facilitating the provision of low-cost housing, Family Homes Fund is creating new jobs through investments in housing projects. The fund’s approach to creating jobs is driven by three priorities:

The fund is support ongoing dialogue around development of a local contents framework for inputs into the house building process. A long-term objective is to ensure that up to 80per cent of manufactured inputs are locally produced.

He also stressed that much more can be achieved collectively, than any single player can individually. The Fund is building strong partnerships with various institutions and agencies to maximize this opportunity.

“Through the Investments made, the Fund is equipping a new generation of young Nigerians with high-level skills in modern methods of construction and technologies,” he said.

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