President William Ruto lays the foundation stone for the construction of affordable housing units in Buuri, Meru County, on January 25, 2024.
Only one in 10 Kenyans registered for home ownership under the State’s affordable housing scheme are saving to acquire the units, raising questions on the model’s sustainability.
Official records also show that only 547,000 people have registered for the affordable housing programme—less than two percent of Kenya’s adult population—revealing a meek reception of one of President William Ruto’s pet projects.
Data by the National Treasury further shows that out of 547,000 Kenyans who have been onboarded on Boma Yangu. In this online portal, people register to own affordable houses, but only 52,000 have saved.
A section of the Affordable Housing Project in Mukuru, Nairobi on December 11, 2024.
“In addition, on the online portal platform, Boma Yangu, over 547,000 have registered, of which 52,000 have collectively saved more than Sh2.3 billion towards homeownership,” Treasury says in the 2025 Budget Policy Statement (BPS).
When extrapolated to Kenya’s adult population (20 years and above), this means that only 1 in 53 Kenyans have registered for ownership of the houses, and just one in 559 Kenyans are saving for it. This is based on the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics projected population of 29.06 million Kenyans aged 20 and above this year.
The Sh2.3 billion that the 52,000 Kenyans have saved through Boma Yangu also reveals a low appetite for the houses since it reflects an average saving of Sh44,230 for each of the savers.
This average saving is five percent of the cheapest house under the Affordable Housing Programme (AHP), projected to cost about Sh840,000 meaning that on average, savers are halfway to contributing the minimum 10 percent deposit required to book the cheapest unit.
“Already, 4,888 housing units are set for completion across 21 social housing projects and will soon be launched. The units, comprise studios, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom homes, and are tailored to meet the needs of Kenyans, offering 1,041 social housing units, 2,133 affordable housing units, and 1,714 affordable middle-class housing units in 24 counties,” says the Treasury.
Houses in the affordable housing programme being constructed at Bondeni Estate in Nakuru Town East.
Under the AHP, President Ruto initially targeted to construct 200,000 housing units annually, an ambition he has been unable to achieve, with Cabinet Secretary in charge of the programme, Alice Wahome, recently indicating that the government would only manage about 800 units annually.
Formally employed Kenyans have since July 2023 been taxed 1.5 percent of their salaries as Housing Levy, with their employers matching the levies.
The levy, however, received huge criticism from the public and more specifically workers, even as the government defended the programme as one that would create a million jobs annually.
An affordable housing project in Ngara, Nairobi, on December 4, 2020.
“The AHP has created over 164,000 jobs through the housing value chain
While the levies were intended to play a catalytic role in the construction of the houses, more than Sh40 billion has been invested in Treasury papers, even as construction of the houses remains slower than promised.
Treasury now says that over the last two years, 124,000 housing units are at different stages of completion across 75 sites in 37 counties under the AHP, but only 4,888 are marked for launch shortly.
