The Rental System in Ghanaian Poor Housing Communities, Challenges and Adaptation Strategies

Shelter is one of the fundamental needs of human survival aside food and clothing. However, provision of adequate housing to accommodate people in urban areas has been a challenge in developing countries, including Ghana. This has caused many Ghanaians, especially the low-income group, to resort to the rental sector for their housing needs. It is widely discussed in the literature that each city user is to be accorded the needed right to utilise what exists in the city, including decent accommodation. This article examines the strategies put in place by lowincome house tenants to cope with the challenges of renting houses in the Wenchi Municipality, in order to rightly utilise urban housing. The study used a quantitative approach and a questionnaire survey to collect data from 245 tenant household heads. Purposive and systematic sampling techniques were used to select the respondents for the study. The data was analysed using SPSS. The study revealed that rental problems faced by tenants and adaptation measures developed to cope in cities and bigger towns are not different from what exists in the smaller towns. The study recommended that rent control should be strengthened to perform its duties in the rental sector well enough to protect the interest of the urban low-income renters. Keywords: Challenges, low-income housing, low-income tenants, housing quality, rental accommodation, rental system, Wenchi, Ghana