Investigating the Factors Affecting the Level of satisfaction among Residents in " MEHR" Housing Project in Dehaqan, Iran

The “MEHR” housing project is one of the most recent projects undertaken by the Ministry of Roads & Urban Development. Despite the main aim of the project which is accommodating low income citizens, recent studies demonstrate that the living condition in these housing projects is not satisfactory. The main aim of this article is to evaluate the satisfaction level of residents in Mehr housing project from residents’ perspectives through both qualitative and quantitative methods. “Exploratory Factor analysis” was used as the main method mainly due to its capability in analyzing the parameters which are affected by the context.
Findings: The findings of this article indicate that factor analysis causes a reduction in the number of satisfaction indicators from 71 to 22. Furthermore, application of “varimax rotation” in factor analysis method is due to its ability in correlating literature reviews with the result. In this article, KMO index was 0/611 which is considered in the standard range of factor analysis. Skewness & Kurtosis indexes was calculated to assess the normality of questionnaire data. Finally, normalization process show the various conditions of various factors. Eventually, cluster analysis presented the distribution of satisfaction in the study sample (150 households). In contrast to prior studies, this research identified a four-level structure for Mehr housing project satisfactory factors (housing units, housing buildings; housing site, surrounding area of the site)
The results show that the most important factors in the residents’ dissatisfaction in “MEHR” housing project were the lack of access to primary civic services (educational, religious and security), lack of activity centers, the need for pedestrian-oriented and mixed use development, insufficient surveillance and low maintenance service on the interior spaces of housing units, high level of environmental pollutants and lack of recreational spaces. The findings of this article show that 76 percent of households were not satisfied with the quality of their life. The result of this article would help the executive agencies of “MEHR” housing projects, in considering the satisfaction level of residents. This article also demonstrates that "shelter making" alone cannot be considered a comprehensive satisfactory parameter for low income households because the essential needs of individuals is to live in a well-designed community and not just in a shelter. Therefore, this article recommends to first assess the future needs of residents prior to the development process. People who live in Dehaqan Mehr housing were found to be satisfied with having a shelter but the quality of life was not acceptable due to the factors discussed. The main factors causing serious problems in this Mehr housing project were identified to be related to its infrastructures and social and health issues as Finally, it is worth mentioning that the city management system of “MEHR” housing project has to invest on short term actions, first to build a school, a mosque and a police station and second to allocate the best places for communal activities (such as markets, green spaces and cultural centers).