Our History

About NACHU

NACHU is the registered National Union for Housing Cooperatives in Kenya. It was registered under the Cooperative Societies Act (Cap 490) in 1979 but started operations in 1987. NACHU is a leading affordable housing provider in Kenya, delivering strong growth in housing solutions to transform people’s lives. NACHU’s mission is to contribute to the improvement of shelter and quality of life through the provision of education and training, technical and financial services on a sustainable basis. 

NACHU Historical Context

After Kenya’s independence in 1963, housing development was mainly done by the government and local authorities with little or no citizen participation. The 1969 Kenya National Housing Policy was in favor of the middle income housing and did not provide any strategy for the urban poor. A need therefore arose to create a vehicle that would fill the gap for the provision of low income housing with pro-poor initiatives and the human rights based approach. In this regard, a number of civil society organisations, community based organisations and international development partners in collaboration with relevant government ministries spearheaded lobbying for the establishment for a national body that would be community based. The team agreed to use the housing cooperative model to address these housing gaps and the National Cooperative Housing Union (NACHU) was therefore registered in 1979 under the Cooperatives Societies Act Cap.490. It however started its operations in 1987 and its mandate has been to empower low and modest income communities and in particular the urban poor in order to realize adequate housing and quality of life on a sustainable basis