The ends required to justify the means for sustainable affordable housing: A review on critical success criteria

In this time of increasing housing demand and incessant housing supply deficit, the need for critical success criteria (CSC) to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the performance of affordable housing projects has become even more relevant. Though affordable housing has received much attention in the construction industry, success in affordable housing is interpreted differently by different researchers and is an abstract term difficult to be assessed. Besides, limited studies exit on providing a framework for assessing success in affordable housing projects. This paper aims to review the literature on CSC for affordable housing and based on the outcomes develop a framework for measuring success in affordable housing projects. To this end, CSC-related papers were retrieved from Scopus and the Web of Science databases. A systematic desktop search was employed, which culminated in the selection of 34 articles related to CSC for both general construction and affordable housing projects. Based on the literature, 20 CSC for sustainable affordable housing were identified and used to develop a conceptual framework of product success, project management success, and project success. Practically, the findings of this study could help architects, project managers, and planners monitor and control affordable housing projects to ensure successful delivery while also serving as measuring criteria to assess performance of affordable housing projects in meeting households' needs. Theoretically, this study offers an important acumen to the existing literature on CSC for affordable housing and provides useful findings for further empirical studies.