As the government started taking a serious interest in public housing in the later 1940s, on 17 August, 1950, the first official office for housing, the Department of Popular Homes (Idarat al-masakin al-sha'biya), was established within the Ministry of Social Affairs.

[3] In the wake of the 1973 October War, efforts to rebuild the Suez Canal cities were put in motion by establishing the Ministry of Reconstruction (wizarat al-ta'mir),[4] in parallel to the Ministry of Housing and Utilities.

[6] In 1979, the New Urban Communities Authority, or NUCA, was established as a state owned enterprise to implement these activities and its chairman is appointed by the president.

[7] NUCA was originally affiliated to the cabinet, and its board included the ministers of economics, finance, housing and reconstruction, electricity, irrigation, land reclamation, and industry and natural resources.

[8] In 1980, with the devolution of public housing to the local administration, and expansion in desert agriculture, the cabinet level office was restructured as the Ministry of Reconstruction, State for Housing, and Land Reclamation.