Sixteen years into its democratic existence, the South African government is still struggling to provide adequate low-cost housing as set out in the several housing policies since 1994. Some of the weaknesses of the housing policy is that there is not a clear link between the current focus in government on the contribution of housing to poverty alleviation, and the ability of the policy to deliver on these objectives. This resulted in housing backlogs and poor quality low cost houses. South Africa’s minister of human settlements, Mr. Tokyo  reports that the government housing backlog stands at 2.1 million units, affected over eight million people.