Abstract:
Housing has increasingly become a threatened product in many urban areas in highly populated regions. As a result, several urban dwellers live under housing conditions that affect an individual’s pride and experiences, causing distressing social, economic, spatial and, health implications. Particularly, the deficit in housing supply and the high prices of the available housing stock poses challenges to the residents of urban centers. This research therefore, sought to discover the challenges that the residents of Madina in the La-Nkwantanang Madina Municipal Area face when renting housing units for shelter. The study adopted multi-sampling technique (three-stages) and sampled 150 residents in Madina for the survey. In-depth interviews were conducted for 35 residents (15 residents who lived informal structures and 20 who lived ininformal structures in Madina). Findings from the research showed that residents preferred to access housing units themselves than the other means (through friends and family and rental agents). It was revealed that residents faced psychological (anxiety, fear of eviction and reduced mastery and privacy), economic (high rent charges, extortion from rental agents and high rent payment advance), social challenges (eviction, unreliable security and floods) as they rent. In addition, the field data showed the various coping strategies for dealing with the challenges.For economic challenges, residents took loans from friends and family, signed under Susu schemes, reduced expenditure among others. Reliance on God, alcoholism andloans were some of the coping strategies for psychological challenges. Residents used burglar proofs for security, raised frontage of doorsteps to prevent floodwater from getting into their rooms, among others, to cope with social challenges faced in renting. The research, therefore recommends that the government institutions responsible for enhancing supply of housing like Ministry of Water Resources, Work and Housing and financial institutions, for instance, Ghana Home Loans Ltd should make mortgage plans more flexible and tailored to suit all income earners. Again, housing policies and frameworks regarding urban housing should be well implemented by the various stakeholders. In addition, rental agents need to form associations or companies and be put under the ministry of local government where their operations can be supervised.
