The former Chairman of the Nigerian Institution OF Surveyors Rivers state chapter has said that the condition of Housing and Slump Development in Port Harcourt is quite alarming.
He stated this while interacting with our Correspondent in port Harcourt that the horrible situation of housing in port Harcourt has long been due for proper attention and redesigning.
It focuses on the spread of substandard housing, building types, and dwellers’ income with environment in the metropolis. These were with a view to tracing/ascertaining the trend of slum development, the categories of people living in such area, the type of house and the conditions that warrant such individual to living in slum area in Port-Harcourt city, because slump area brings negative issues to humans’ lives.
From enumeration, more than twenty-five (25) slums area, out of which 4 have been demolished by the Government and the remaining twenty-one (21) areas were grouped into 10 zones in Port-Harcourt metropolis.
The results of the findings according to the Surveyor indicated that, there is high level of illiteracy, poorly built buildings with sub-standard materials like nylon, used roofing sheet, low income level, poor structural condition of building, high occupancy ratio and unsanitary environmental condition. It was noted that most residents choose to live in those substandard settlement due to high cost of rent and their income level is low.
We also gather that most people residing in the slum area are youth within the age of 19 to 36years (43.39%), and others are married (39.21%). It was revealed from the checks that most unmarried people co-habits (39.21%), the highest educational level of most was secondary school (40.05%), with majority earning not more than #5000 monthly (38.44%) and the cost of rentage was mostly between #1000 to #1500 per month (40.05%).
It further reveals that most respondents (38.00%) dispose their waste on water channel. The drainage condition in slum area like Oyigbo, Eleme, logos and many interior part was in bad state, most residents do not have drainage facilities at all.
The poor drainage system exposes the area to regular flooding and overflowing of water in rainy season. Morealso, a significant different existed between income and type of house in slum area.
