Township homeowners in Gauteng will be financially assisted to upgrade and build backrooms to make available for rentals on their yards.

The announcement was made by Gauteng premier David Makhura in his state of the provincial address yesterday where he said the number of people living in backrooms has almost doubled in 15 years.

Makhura said the number grew from 13% in 2001 to 24% in 2016.

Homeowners in the townships are rapidly upgrading their properties for the rental market. Their target market is mostly people arriving from SA's rural areas and foreign nationals working in the cities.

Township lodging has proved an affordable to flats in town and suburbs

"The township real estate market is a fast-growing hidden component of the township economy that has enormous potential to empower people and it requires policy support. This is the potential to increase the asset base of township residents," said Makhura.

"Accordingly, the provincial government will work with municipalities and the private sector to develop innovative partnerships to provide affordable lending for the owners of properties to upgrade their backyard rooms."

Although Makhura did not go into details, Gauteng government spokesperson Thabo Masebe said this would be facilitated by a fund that the province would establish soon.

"We will establish a fund; there are no details on how it will be facilitated yet because the premier was announcing the intention to do this," said Masebe when approached by Sowetan for more details on Makhura's announcement.

"The premier was announcing that we will support those township homeowners who have backrooms so that they can build proper infrastructures that will continue generating income."

Makhura also gave another boost to human settlements in the province by announcing that land would be released to people who have money to build their own homes.

He said it was clear that people were willing to do things on their own and do not necessarily want to depend on the government.

"[What] we therefore need is action and collaboration between municipalities and the province to make available 100 000 serviced stands with minimum building standards, over the next five years," he said.