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.”