National Housing Authority (Philippines)

The National Housing Authority (NHA) is the sole national agency mandated to engage in housing production for low income families. It traces its roots to the People’s Homesite Corporation (PHC), the first government housing agency established on 14 October 1938 and to the National Housing Commission (NHC) which was created seven years later, on 17 September 1945. These two agencies, the PHC and NHC, were eventually merged on 4 October 1947 into the People’s Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC). In the years that followed, six (6) more housing agencies were created to respond to separate and distinct shelter requirements, namely: the Presidential Assistant on Housing and Resettlement Agency (PAHRA); the Tondo Foreshore Development Authority (TFDA); the Central Institute for the Training and Relocation of Urban Squatters (CITRUS); the Presidential Committee for Housing and Urban Resettlement (PRECHUR); the Sapang Palay Development Committee (SPDC); the Inter-Agency task Force to Undertake the Relocation of Families in Barrio Nabacaan, Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. Eventually, on 15 October 1975, the National Housing Authority was organized as a government-owned and controlled corporation, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 757 dated 31 July 1975. All other housing agencies were abolished by the said decree. The NHA took over and integrated the functions of the abolished agencies- the PHHC and the six (6) other housing agencies. The creation of the NHA is the second attempt of the government to integrated all housing efforts under a single agency, twenty-eight years after the merger under the PHHC.