Patterns of Supplying Housing for Low Income Groups, Karaj City

IntroductionRapid urban growth and huge migrations into metropolitan areas including Karaj City make the need for housing more and more complicated. The housing is a durable, multidimensional, non - homogenous, immoveable, very expensive good, and the main factor signifying the sociability of people within the universe which is accompanied with symbolic values as the sign of status and lifestyle of people. Based on this, the current paper has aimed to evaluate the state of the houses of people of different income classes, to suggest plans for preparing people of low income with appropriate housing at different city spots of the province of Karaj city, and to reveal more about the poor quality of the construction of houses, inappropriate urban planning pattern, and improper materials used for building urban houses, in order to attract the attention of the authorities and managers. Housing is one of the elements of the permanent development. Unlike everyday used goods, housing would become a kind of investment since it gets value continually. Other than its economic value, it increases in value and demand due to its social, cultural, physical, psychological, and health aspects. Most of the immigrants are from low income and vulnerable classes. Thus, there are many low income and poor families in Karaj City. They are sometimes urgently in need for a house for living. The policy of inexpensive houses is not greatly used in Iran metropolitan areas; although after the Islamic Revolution many attempts have been made to provide the public with social houses. The main issue in this research is to investigate the existing state of the housing indices and the ways to supply the housing for low income residents. . All the above mentioned reasons have caused housing a serious question so that homelessness, and home-badness is slipping towards higher Deciles.
MethodologyThis is a fundamental-developmental research by a descriptive-analytical method. The study area of this research is Karaj City as center of Alborz Province in the vicinity of Tehran, as capital of Iran. The variables included in the research are deciles, foundation surface, family dimension, percentage of ownership, percentage of tenants and occupants, cost of house, and bank accommodations. The data have been obtained from Iran Statistical Center. The methods used include statistics techniques of population tenths. In order to estimate financial states of the groups, the indirect function method is being used. Also, in order to define the opportunities, threats, power points and weak points of the low - income groups.
Quantitative analyses are performed through indirect method functions and Stone-Garry Function. At last, to estimate and calculate the absolute line of poverty EVIEWS software, and for the relative line of poverty SPSS and Excel software were used.
Results and discussionInvestigation about the index of the area owned by urban families in the province demonstrates that in the studied period, we have witnessed a drastic decrease. The number of housing units in the Karaj City in 2012 was up to 485565 units. The ownership was also 42.1 % and the percentage of occupants was 42 % in the city. Half the foundation of the buildings was less than 100 square meters. The cost of housing of a family out of the total basket cost in Karaj was 29.3 % and the cost of the low incomes families was 26 %. With a population growth prediction and family dimension of 3.3 people in each family, in the horizons of 2016, 2021, and 2026 we would require 65647, 47878, and 33637 new houses, respectively, for the low income families. The land area for each building is considered as 75 square meters and in 4 floors of 115 square meters.
ConclusionThe pattern of supplying houses for low - income families would be achieved by getting difference of expenses by government payments, the aids from government housing subsides, or by the credits from central bank. The municipality can give the required urban lands to the builders of the residential units. The cash from the people demanded for the houses, bank credits, and philanthropic aids without lands and the aids with the lands can be useful to achieve the goal. The lower tenths of the residents of urban areas in Karaj city are of the highest rate of tenancy the value of which reduces as we move towards higher tenths. Hence, regarding the volume of housing needs, the first tenths of the society are of higher needs for the tenancy percentage in the city.
To investigate financial capability of different Deciles regarding house provision, indirect function has been applied. It suggests a large amount of difference among different income Deciles according to the function results so that the first six Deciles, literally, cannot afford house provision. The results of the study suggest that there are numerous principal problems in the realms of housing economy and market. Furthermore, one can witness the impacts of several factors in housing sector such as major economic condition, inflation rate, the growth in the price of land, the growth in the price of construction material, growth in the gap between effective demand and potential demand, the low amount of government bestowed facilities for either purchasing or building house, and applying rigid rules and regulations regarding house construction. All the above-mentioned factors have caused a harsh situation for low-income groups of people to obtain appropriate house. In addition, as time passes, it has been becoming worse. A Based on what has been discussed, applying some proper strategies, policies, and decisions seems necessary in order to provide the required (economical, legal, cultural, and urban civilization) factors for low - income groups.