Identification of Challenges and Evaluating the Performance of Mehr Housing from Citizens’ Viewpoint (Case Study: Pardis Town – Kazerun)

Having a safe and secure shelter has been one of the oldest wishes of any human being and in order to attain suitable houses, human societies have always attempted to improve the quality and quantity of houses by the use of various methods and technologies. According to the fact that residential areas with high quality will transfer the feeling of satisfaction due to the properties that might be physical, social or symbolic to a crowd, there’s no doubt that houses have an essential importance in human beings’ improvement. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations states that all people have the right to reach a standard living condition for their family and themselves. This standard level of living according to the United Nations includes the required food, clothes, house, health care and social services. One of the regions in which Mehr Housing policies have been applied is Kazerun County in Fars Province. At first the settlement of about 5 thousands households was taken into consideration but due to lack of allocation of enough credit, this number decreased to 900 units and currently the project of 104 units has been operated in Pardis Town in Kazerun with the aim of providing services to the citizens. While studies show that researchers have carried out numerous studies to examine citizens’ satisfaction from Mehr Housings and no studies have been carried out so far to coherently evaluate the challenges of Mehr Houses. Aware of this important fact, researchers attempt to explain the following issues in the present study: What is the level of satisfaction of settlers in Mehr Houses of Pardis Town in Kazerun? What are the most important challenges of Mehr Housing in Pardis Town in Kazerun? And what strategies do the settlers in Mehr Houses suggest to overcome the identified challenges?
Research The current research is an applied study in nature and it is a descriptive-analytic study in terms of methodology. Documentary and field studies were used for data collection. Research population included all the heads of households of Mehr Houses in Pardis Town in Kazerun which was 104 subjects and among them, 100 subjects accepted to interview with the researchers and complete the designed questionnaire. It is noteworthy that the aforementioned questionnaire has been designed in four sections. The first section deals with the personal information of the respondents (demographic variables) and general information about the residential units of Mehr Housing Project in Pardis Town; the second section of the questionnaire deals with the variables related to the satisfaction of citizens from residential units of Mehr Housing Project which has been designed in eight indexes of facilities in the complex, accessibility and transportation, physical, environmental, security, economic, social, cultural and management parameters. The third section of the questionnaire was allocated to the variables related to the challenges of Mehr Housing Project and the fourth was section was designed in the form of an open question under this theme: “what is your most important solution to solve the problems of Mehr Housing?” The second and third sections of the questionnaire were designed in a five scales in Likert format
Findings
Research results of Pardis Town citizens’ satisfaction from Mehr Housing in the form of the main indexes of the research show undesirable satisfaction of citizens from research indexes (facilities of the complex, accessibility and transportation, physical, environmental, security, economic, social, and cultural and management indexes) because more than half of the respondents’ satisfaction level was at average, low and very low levels for all indexes. Despite this, research results show that the least level of satisfaction among respondents was for three indexes of accessibility and transportation, facilities of the complex and the physical condition of the complex because the level of satisfaction in these indexes was 92 percent, 80 percent and 76 percent at the levels of average, low and very low, respectively. Results: show that 30 percent of the citizens had acceptable level of satisfaction, 22 percent had average level of satisfaction and 48 percent had weak level of satisfaction from settling in Mehr houses in Pardis Town. Also the results of one-sample t-test show that the total average level of satisfaction of respondents from settling in Mehr houses in Pardis Town was 2.73 which was less than the reference number (that is, 3). Therefore, it can be stated that in general the level of citizens’ satisfaction living in Mehr houses of Pardis Town is in an inappropriate condition. Also results of prioritizing the strategies for overcoming the problems of Mehr houses of Pardis Town show that citizens have suggested 9 substantial solutions to overcome the problems. Among the suggested solutions, three solutions of establishing fundamental service centers (schools, hospitals, firefighting stations, parks, etc.) near the town, a closer monitoring of the quality of the materials used for the construction of Mehr houses by contractors and allocation of public services to overcome the difficulties of citizens commuting to downtown with 93, 86 and 76 repetitions were the most important solutions suggested by citizens to reduce the problems of Mehr Housing in the region under investigation. The current research has been conducted in Pardis Town in Kazerun with the aim of studying the level of citizen’s satisfaction from living in Mehr houses and identifying its challenges. The primary research results showed that the level of satisfaction of citizens settling in Mehr Houses located in Pardis Town was in an inappropriate condition. The obtained results are in line with research results of Purmohammadi and Asadi (2014) about Mehr Housing Projects in Zanjan and research results of Rafiiyan et al. (2014) about eleven thousand Mehr residential units project in Mahdasht which showed that the level of citizens’ satisfaction from Mehr Residential Complex is lower than average. On the other hand, research results were not in line with research results of Rezaii and Kamalizadeh (2012) about the satisfaction of the residents from Mehr Residential Complex of Fatemi in Yazd which indicated that the level of citizens’ satisfaction from Mehr houses is average.