National context
- The national budget allocated to human settlement, and water and electrification programmes decreased from R59.2 billion in 2024/25 to R57.4 billion in 2025/26, continuing a downward trend and constituting 2.2% of consolidated government expenditure of R2.59 trillion.
- According to Stats SA’s General Household Survey 2024, the percentage of households that live in formal dwellings increased from 73% in 2002 to 84% in 2024. Almost 12% of households lived in informal dwellings and 3.9% in traditional dwellings. The survey also found that while nearly 72% of urban residents have access to safely managed water, only 36% of rural populations do. The percentage of South African households that were connected to the mains electricity supply increased from 76% in 2002 to 90% in 2024.
- The 2024 White Paper for Human Settlements reports that government has delivered 5.2 million housing opportunities since 1994, but there are still more than 3.4 million South Africans on the housing needs register. The rate at which government has been providing housing has declined, meaning it will take longer to meet the housing demand at the current rate of supply. The human settlements backlog manifests as the rise of informal settlements, poor-quality physical environments and limited access to social and economic amenities.
- According to the Department of Human Settlements (DHS), there were 4 297 informal settlements, home to more than two million households, across South Africa in 2023, most of which are in the major metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, Cape Town and eThekwini. The DHS has committed to upgrading 1 500 informal settlements by 2026 and, in total, just over 4 000 by 2029 through the Informal Settlement Upgrading Programme (ISUP).
- In February 2025, Stats SA released its first thematic report on homelessness in South Africa, A Profile of Homeless Persons in South Africa 2022, based on 2022 Census data. The research found that there has been an upward trend in homelessness over the past three decades. The number of homeless persons increased from 13 135 in 1996 to 55 719 in 2022. Children account for approximately 7% of homeless people, while youth (15–34 years) represent 44%.
Overview of CSI spend
Housing and living conditions were supported by 20% of companies and received 2% of average CSI expenditure.
- Average CSI spend on water and sanitation increased from the least supported intervention type in 2024 (11%) to the most supported in 2025, at an average of 33%, though sample numbers were small.
- Support for energy and energy efficiency initiatives also increased, from an average of 14% in 2024 to 18% in 2025.
- In contrast, average sector CSI spend on building houses dropped from the highest in 2024 (31%) to among the least supported in 2025 (3%), alongside maintenance (3%).
- Companies also reported supporting legal assistance and helping facilitate title deed access. Overall, 18% of average CSI allocations went to other intervention types in this sector.
[CASE STUDY] Tracking social housing success beyond units
South Africa’s social housing programme, intended to contribute towards redressing the spatial and socioeconomic inequalities entrenched by apartheid, represents a government investment of around R1 billion annually. Despite this substantial financial commitment and quantitative evidence of the delivery of social housing units, an information gap persists. Little is known about how effective social housing is for resident wellbeing.
The latest data from the Social Housing Regulatory Authority shows notable growth, with units under regulation increasing by 38% from 32 046 in 2018 to 44 114 in 2023. However, Karabelo Pooe, the general manager of the National Association of Social Housing Organisations, notes that the impact of these numbers on advancing household economic and social opportunities is often assumed rather than measured.
Pooe says that analysis efforts in the sector prioritise limited metrics. Unit delivery is the top priority, with the focus on annual completion rates and geographic distribution. The location of social housing is a further consideration, as monitoring the trend of ‘spatial drift’ – the movement of projects from well-located urban areas to the periphery, where social housing struggles to compete with commercial development – is crucial. Tracking household impact is often limited to recording the number of individuals in units to measure reach.
“While these metrics provide valuable operational insights, they don’t capture the transformative potential that social housing advocates have long championed,” Pooe comments.
Missing measures in social housing
Pooe says that meaningful measures in social housing should consider how access to affordable housing in better urban environments impacts tenants’ quality of life and social trajectory.
Indicators might include tracking educational outcomes, such as academic performance and post-secondary school opportunities, as well as the impact of proximity to quality healthcare facilities on health outcomes.
Assessment could also measure career advancement for individuals moving to well-located urban areas and consider the generational impact of tenants in social housing, which represents an untapped opportunity for longitudinal studies.
A significant, but more difficult indicator to measure, is what Pooe calls the “exposure effect”. He shares a compelling story of a young person who successfully pursued a career in town planning after talking with a professional planner he met during shared bus commutes. “Personal stories like these illustrate how proximity to diverse economic and social opportunities can fundamentally alter aspirations and life outcomes.”
Policy and practice need deeper M&E
Several studies have begun assessing the impact of social housing on social wellbeing beyond basic indicators. The 2023 Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) report, Social Housing and Upward Mobility in South Africa: an Assessment of Household Outcomes, noted that South Africa’s social housing policy had failed to translate its goals of reducing inequality and promoting social transformation into practical implementation guidance. While the policy appropriately focuses on delivering affordable housing units, it neglects the developmental outcomes for tenants that could facilitate upward mobility.
The report explains that tenants’ socioeconomic progress is not monitored, as policymakers have not specified how social housing organisations (SHOs) should promote household advancement. SHOs are also not guided on issues such as tenant development or project location. The resulting uneven practice means that many social housing developments are poorly located and that tenants have not improved their circumstances as expected.
HSRC research suggests the effect of social housing projects on upward social mobility has been modest and complicated. Less than 8% of households that left social housing progressed to home ownership, while 14% moved for better work opportunities, highlighting the need for investment in monitoring these impacts.
The need for a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework to measure the effectiveness of social housing initiatives and guide their continuous improvement was also one of the findings of the 2025 Frontiers report Assessing the impact of social housing on urban regeneration in South African cities. It proposes that standardised evaluation tools assess social and environmental factors alongside financial and operational aspects of social housing projects, thereby contributing to accountability, transparency and alignment with sector goals.
M&E opportunities in social housing
The combination of government and private investment, growing sector capacity and long-term residents occupying social housing creates an ideal opportunity for comprehensive M&E in the sector. The building blocks to achieve this include;
- Implementing longitudinal studies with long-term social housing residents to track educational opportunities, health improvements, employment progression and generational mobility.
- Developing quality-of-life metrics that measure the numbers while also considering access to opportunities, community integration and social mobility outcomes.
- Creating mechanisms to give residents more voice so their experiences and insights can feed back to policy development.
- Building partnership platforms that can leverage private sector M&E expertise to expand evaluation efforts.
The potential of social housing to disrupt spatial inequalities and promote social mobility remains largely unmeasured. As Pooe concludes, “We need robust evaluation systems to capture the human stories beyond statistics so that social housing can transition from providing shelter to transforming society.”
