Morris, MA; (1992) The ability and willingness to pay for low-cost housing: Household experiences in the Faux au Chaud Settlement in Castries, St. Lucia. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research integrates the elements of affordability, household socio-demographic change and housing improvement in understanding how low-income households establish the ability and willingness to pay for low-cost housing at any conjuncture. In order to do this the researcher firstly examined how the concept of affordability has been applied since 1974, to the design and production of low-cost housing in Developing Countries and the associated issues involved. It is established from existing literature that housing programmes based on this concept have had limited success in providing housing access for the majority of low income households below the 40th income percentile. The problem appears to relate to the inability to establish levels of housing affordability as a consequence of the invalidity of assumptions and the definitional, measurement and operational inadequacies as gleaned from existing literature. Further, it is the view of this research that this inability is also due to the failure of housing programme designers to take cognizance of the impact of the social and demographic attributes in the establishment of the ability and willingness to pay for housing at specific conjuncture. These issues have led to the apparent non-correspondence between the housing solutions developed based on the concept and the households'ability and willingness to pay for them. The challenge remains as that of 1) finding appropriate housing supply responses to match the varying levels of the ability and willingness to pay which are thought to exist among these households and 2) determining how low-income households establish their ability and willingness to pay for housing. For this research the latter area of this challenge which is the concern of this research, must be determine if the former is to be resolved. This is done by examining the housing experiences of households to determine when and how they actually establish the ability and willingness to pay. This research therefore employed a user-determined approach among a casestudy population of urban, low-income squatter households in Castries, St Lucia. From this study, it is hoped that guiding principles might be derived to inform the design of low-cost housing programmes.

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