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The JHC organisation is giving downtown Jozi a face-lift by renovating occupied buildings as well as building new ones in the city centre. These buidlings offer inexpensive, safe and good quality lodging.

In 2007, JHC already owned 24 buildings, provinding homes to more than 8500 people. "Focusing on long-term maintenance and sustainability while working with the communities around the buildings and mobilising commercial funding for social housing, JHC delivers housing with sensitivity to social and economic realities." (SouthAfrica.info, 12 May 2009)

A few of JHC's many great successes;

• The first new build residential development in over thirty years in the inner city (Jeppe Oval 1997)
• The first conversion from hotel to residential development (Landrost 2000)
• The first new high rise residential development in over forty years in the inner city (Brickfields 2005)
• The first solar heating application to a high rise residential building (Smitshof 2005)
• The first tenant hardship assistance programme in South Africa, applied particularly to tenants who have lost a breadwinner through HIV/Aids (2003)
• A combination of tenant committees and tenant volunteers who participate in the community development activities of JHC. *Over 800 tenants have participated in JHC training schemes.
• The first inter-building soccer and netball leagues, resulting in over 400 young people participating in organized sporting activities
• The first inner city neighbourhood residential improvement programme (Ekhaya Neighbourhood Programme, Pietersen Street, initiated September 2004)
• The first loan by a commercial financial institution to a social housing institution, thereby breaking the proverbial red line banks had drawn around the inner city (Elangeni 2002)
• The first structured finance package to a social housing project bringing in a combination of equity and debt (Brickfields 2005)
• The first South African company to win the UN Habitat award (2006)
• Taffy Adler, the Managing Director of JHC was one of the four finalists for the "Social Entrepreneur Awards South Africa 2007", by the Schwabb Foundation and Ernst & Young

(Source:JHC)

Visit their website for more information Johannesburg Housing Committee