Since 2016, the term ‘decent home’ has been regularly used in budget speeches without any effort from the government to define that term and its concept in our legislations or policies and neither did they try to formulate a programme nor an implementation plan. In 2021, the Finance Minister stated in his budget speech that « One of Government’s main priorities is to ensure that every family in our country has a decent home.’’ In 2022, the Minister reiterated the same vision by stating that « Government is committed to investing in safe and affordable housing for our citizens so that each and every family has a decent home. » The Minister has once again repeated the government’s commitment to invest in 12,000 social housing units by stating this time « we made a commitment to provide 12,000 families with a decent home during this mandate…, we will deliver on our promise to complete this landmark project by 2024. » Was it a stump speech or a budget speech? What is this new obsession of the Mauritian government of building decent homes when they have missed their housing target year after year since 2014? Is it not time to move from rhetoric to reality? After all, what is a ‘decent home’?
In 2000, the British Labour Party under the prime ministership of Tony Blair introduced the Decent Homes Programme which aimed to provide a minimum standard of housing conditions for all social housing residents. The British government prepared a technical standard for social housing under the title Decent Homes Standard which was updated in 2006 under the title: A Decent Home: Definition and guidance for implementation published by the Department for Communities and Local Government in order to include the implementation of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System in line with the Housing Act 2004. Under this policy, the local authorities were required to prepare an assessment, modify and, where necessary, replace their housing stock according to the conditions laid out in the standard. The criteria for the standard were to meet the current statutory minimum standard for housing, be in a reasonable state of repair, have reasonably modern facilities and services and provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort. The local authorities had till 2010 to implement the policy which consequently led to the demolition of tower blocks in some London Boroughs and dismantling of prefabricated buildings in the United Kingdom which were deemed beyond repair or too expensive to renovate.
From the Budget Speech 2022-2023, it is clear and obvious that the government has not fully grasped the concept of social housing, affordable housing nor decent home according to my point of view. Otherwise, there would have been no misunderstanding from the Finance Minister when using all three distinct terms in a single sentence to express the government’s commitment to building houses for people registered with the National Housing Development Company (NHDC). At a time of COVID-19 and climate change, the people of Mauritius would have expected the government to come forward with a temporary housing programme as advocated by Père Gérard Mongelard in February this year to tackle the problem of squatters and vulnerable groups in housing distress. But then, how could Mauritians have much expectations when the government has not yet prepared a ‘decency’ standard to define a decent home and formulate its implementation despite that the term « decent » in reference to housing has first been used in 2016 and repeatedly thereafter. Will Mauritius become one of the few countries in the world where vulnerable groups, such as the homeless, have a legally enforceable right to housing? In my opinion, the government has once again missed an opportunity to bring about changes in the housing sector.