The Affordable Housing Bill aims at giving effect to Article 43(1)(b) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 on the right access affordable housing and provide a legal framework for access to affordable housing.
The Affordable Housing Bill, 2023 was published on 7 th December 2023. This Bill was necessitated by the judgment of the three Judge bench on 28 th November 2023 in Constitutional Petition No. E181 of 2023 Okoiti Omtata and 6 others v the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Planning and 6 others. In the judgement, the Court held that the housing levy was unconstitutional since it lacked a comprehensive legal framework, and it targeted only persons in the formal employment sector to the exclusion of persons in the informal sector hence discriminatory.
The Bill seeks to address the issues raised in the aforesaid judgement. The Bill provides a legal framework for access to affordable housing. It is noteworthy that the Bill establishes the Affordable Housing Fund whose purpose is to facilitate provision of funds for affordable housing, promotion of home ownership, provision of low interest loans for acquisition of affordable housing and to facilitate development of Affordable Housing in all counties and development of finance solutions for development of Affordable Housing.
