placeholder.jpg The HDA was requested to support the National Association of Social Housing Organisations (NASHO) in July 2012. The overall objective of the partnership was to develop a database of all housing stock developed in South Africa, as well as other rental stock subsidised by the government.
The intention was to map and track these social housing projects in South Africa and to provide the necessary information to support the analysis of the nature, extent and effectiveness of the investment in the sector.
According to the partnership agreement, the HDA will allow NASHO access to LaPsis – an easy-to-use online spatial information system – and provide NASHO training on the system and support for data analysis. It is then NASHO’s responsibility to provide the information and regularly update the database.
The HDA initiated the first phase by assisting NASHO with the mapping of its social housing projects in various metros and surrounding areas. This information and the maps were presented in the Social Housing and Urban Regeneration provincial and national workshops.
NASHO then requested the assistance of the HDA to establish the database on LaPsis. We discussed the user requirements of the database with the NASHO team and developed the basic user specification that guided the development of the database.
The database launch was attended by all social housing institution CEOs and support staff on 19 September 2013, at the Sunnyside Park Hotel. The launch was very successful and all functionalities of the database worked flawlessly. The comments were positive and people were eager to access the database as soon as possible.
We believe that creating this database for NASHO is only the first step towards building a database of all subsidised investment in South Africa’s housing sector.
