An Evaluation of the Baan Eua Arthon Housing Program in Thailand

Risks of a Populist Housing Policy

Abstract

Baan Eua Arthon (BEA) housing program is a large-scale government housing program under a million house program which implemented by the National Housing Authority (NHA). It responses to a housing backlog for Thailand’s low-income population and one of populist policies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Former Prime Minister of Thailand. This paper aims to evaluate the program impact of housing condition on the low-income group in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR), and examine the risks of a populist housing policy. As the original objective of BEA project is to assist the low income group to have security of tenure by ownership. Due to the weakness of one price and design in the different locations which made the huge loss of the NHA because many units remained unsold. The NHA tried to solve the problems by changing an eligible income and price several times to open up an opportunity for higher income to access to BEA housing units. Furthermore, the populist nature of the housing policy, characterized by setting too large a supply target for BEA housing that was beyond the management capacity of the NHA, the low affordability of the originally targeted group, the inappropriate program scheme and procedure involving private developers, the NHA faced severe management crises, such as the surplus of unsold units that forced the deregulation of the income ceiling for eligible applicants. The BEA program thus changed from its original mission as a home-ownership program for low-income people to something that improved housing for the lower- to middle-income groups.