Traditional housing materials have low quality and do not last long. Villagers have to re build or repair their houses now and then, industrial building materials are very expensive as such communities in the rural areas can not afford. (For example, cement in Mwanza is sold at $ 20 a bag of 50 kilograms,) there are no cement factories in the lake-zone, factories are in Tanga, Mbeya and Dar-es-Salaam. (1000 kilometers from Mwanza.), very little skills available in the rural areas to construct good houses, houses have poor ventilation, no foundation, dusty and infested by harmful pests, communities do not use their money reasonably, when they have extra money they put into use things that are not necessary like; marrying a second wife, over-drinking, paying dowries, adding livestock and do not think very much in the improvement of their habitat, people are afraid of been bewitched if they build a good house. A small proportion of the community have extreme poverty and they depend on small scale farming , access to marketing and prices of their produce is  poor and as such they don’t get enough money from agriculture to improve their habitat.

In order to create sense of ownership the Housing Actors were organized as follows;

The primary grass root units are the groups of women, youths, house owners, craftsmen, producers (who are collectively called building actors).

At the level of the village or neighborhood, representative of each group form the Village Housing Committee (VHC).

At the divisional level, representatives of the building actors form the VHC.     Coordinating Body (VHCCB) while representatives of women form the women groups-coordinating committee (WEGCC); and similarly craftsmen have fundi groups coordinating committee (FCC).