Nearly 3,000 people in Ga Mashie sleep on the streets, CHF International, a multinational development organisation's survey has revealed. The nine-month survey also established that 48 people live in a house, with a density of seven people per room. It said currently in Ga Mashie, 2,871 people sleep outside while 14,431 sleep in rooms. And for those privileged to be sleeping in rooms, they are cluttered in groups of four and five in dilapidated, leaking single rooms with broken windows. This reduces Ga Mashie to a status of a slum as the new United Nations housing standard requires that a maximum of three people live in rooms of 12 square metres. Ga Mashie, also known as Old Accra, is one of the oldest and most traditional settlements of the Ga people located in the heart of Accra. The survey which began in February and was completed in October this year, sought to investigate the acute housing needs, congestion as well as the under development of some 17,302 people who live in Old Accra in order to design ways to address it. Interacting with some of the residents at a public forum to make known survey findings to them, Mr Nii Teiko Tagoe, the Executive Director of Ga Mashie Development Agency (GAMADA) expressed regret that Ga Mashie had virtually turned into a slum where environmental, sanitary and housing problems reigned supreme. Further estimation indicated that out of the 1,553 houses, 1,066 are in bad condition with additional 96 being too dilapidated and risky to accommodate people. He announced that a Ga Mashie Housing Improvement Programme aimed at upgrading the community was underway under the Slum Communities Achieving Liveable Environment with Urban Partners (SCALE-UP). SCALE- UP is a CHF programme that provides targeted capacity building to local intermediaries to implement slum upgrading interventions in collaboration with Community-Based Organisations and assemblies. To ensure the accommodation of all residents while making provision for additional spaces for new development, high-rise buildings should be introduced, the survey intimated but was quick to also advise that “with the area being prone to earthquake, technical provisions will have to be made to ensure minimum or no impact to buildings in the event of an earthquake.” Fiiti We, an old structure at Ga Mashie will be the first beneficiary of a pilot project to improve housing at Ga Mashie. Fiiti We is expected to be turned into a three storey structure by private partnership who will recover the cost of construction over a leased period of25 years. Mr Tagoe stated that mortgage firms and financial institutions were willing to finance the reconstruction of the old structures and called on the people to support the project to make it a success. Mr Tagoe also appealed to the various heads of the households to apply to GAMADA to be part of the project. Some of the residents at the forum acknowledged the findings of the CHF, stating that there was the need to help them transform their community to the benefit of the younger generation. Some 385 residents out of which 28.2 per cent were older people of 70 years were interviewed during the survey. The Project Manager of CHF's SCALE-UP, Mr lshmeal Adams, explained that the project was capital intensive and would, therefore, require enormous funding for implementation. He indicated beneficiaries were not in the position to provide the capital needed, hence the need for a partnership with the government and the private sector. "The guiding principles for the proposed development options include the concept of family cluster, planning of new streets, paving of new streets and the creation of more space through high rise buildings," he stated. Source: Daily Graphic