Document Type : Original Article
Subjects
1- Introduction
Low-income housing refers to housing built or supported through government programs or in different ways to support urban low-income groups. The country's economic, social, and cultural development programs, which we have seen since the late 60s, have seen six five-year programs in the field of providing housing for low-income groups; different policies have been the criteria for the implementation of the government's programs, the most important of which are the New Cities Plan, the plan for organizing and empowering informal settlements, the Mehr Housing Plan, Renovation and improvement plan of worn-out textures, urban regeneration plan.
Examining the housing situation in the informal settlements of Mashhad shows that despite the existence of laws and executive programs in the field of providing housing for low-income groups, what has happened in reality shows the disorderly condition of housing in the areas of informal settlements. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the executive policies of the government in providing affordable housing, as well as the degree of success of the executive policies of the government in providing affordable housing in Mashhad, and by using the descriptive-analytical method, seeks to answer this basic question. Basically, to what extent have the executive policies of the government in providing affordable housing in the city of Mashhad been implemented, and what were the most important factors in the success or failure of the plans?
In the end, the final result of the work is the presentation of optimal strategies for producing and supplying affordable housing in the informal settlements of Mashhad.
2- Materials and methods
In terms of the purpose, the current research is an analytical study, and the descriptive-analytical method has been used to determine the role of government policies in providing housing in the informal settlements of Mashhad. The studied area is Mashhad city, with 13 districts and an area of 35147 hectares, and its population is over 3057679 people. The basis of collecting information and data is the documentary and library method, field visits, interviews with experts, and completing a questionnaire with a Likert scale. The required information was collected from domestic and foreign data, scientific sources (books, articles, websites), reports, and policies of action criteria in providing housing for the low-income sections of the society from the first to the sixth development plan of the country. In this research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 experts and specialists based on the purposeful sampling method to evaluate further and specify the important indicators and criteria for the research. Samples were from three departments of university professors, municipalities, and urban regeneration organizations and were analyzed using thematic analysis. In the following, using the results of the interviews, the investigated indicators were refined, and the research questionnaires were completed by the same group of experts (21 people). In order to validate the results and ensure the validity of the questionnaires, the Delphi method was used.
3- Discussion and results
The study demonstrated that the housing policy has resulted in unchecked capitalism and concentrated capital accumulation over the past decade. Moreover, on the other hand, it has led to the de-citizenship of the majority of society and the exclusion of the poor and marginalized. The housing policy during the recent period was not based on the basic identification of the target groups based on the amount of income and economic status of the household. However, it was based on social strata, so it reproduced social and economic inequality under different patterns. The analysis of governments' housing policies shows that despite the formulation of numerous policies and programs in the field of housing and the subordination of policy-making to the macro-government approach in the implementation field. In other words, the executive output was not subject to the ideological approach of the governments, and all the investigated governments did not perform well in providing housing for low-income groups. The delay in the implementation of the approved housing policies, on the one hand, as well as the haste in unnecessarily waiting for the solution of all housing problems from an approved policy, on the other hand, led to the preparation of consecutive and low-yield documents during the program years. On the other hand, there is not much difference between government policies in low-income housing. As long as macroeconomic indicators are not considered, the affordable housing situation will worsen.
4- Conclusion
Finally, in order to improve the housing situation of low-income groups in informal settlements of Mashhad, the following strategies can be taken into consideration:
The author is thankful to all interview participants for supporting this research. This work was supported by the Academic center for Education, culture and Research in Khorasan Razavi Province.
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare no conflict of interest.
