Managing expectation remains biggest challenge

Although the government has built more than two million low-cost houses since 1994, there is still a huge housing backlog. But, as long as the perception of a substantial portion of the population is that affordable housing and free housing is one and the same thing, it is unlikely that the backlog will ever be wiped out.

"Shelter is a human right. Nobody should be without shelter (and if they don't have) they must be provided for. But you can't have a situation in which half the population just simply says: Here we are, it is your responsibility to give us houses; it is your responsibility to furnish those houses ... to feed us ... and to ensure that our children get their education free," Deputy President Kgalema Motlanth said in a recent interview.

In this interview with the Sunday Times he laid his finger on one of the major challenges facing South Africa on the housing front.

He warned of a growing trend in society in which citizens rely too much on the government. He said it was "not sustainable" for the state to have more than 13 million people dependent on social grants.

"People want houses, they want this and they want that. For free, for free! Where have you ever heard of such a thing?" asked Motlanthe.

While it was the government's role to provide for the poor, he said, it was unacceptable for those with the means to expect hand-outs from the state.

He said that "nothing is free, absolutely nothing ... it is paid for from revenue collected from those who pay taxes".

He said a new campaign involving civil society was needed "to inspire people to be their own masters and change agents".

Delivering the ANC’s traditional annual January 8 statement as part of the party’s anniversary celebrations, President Jacob Zuma, who is also president of the ANC,  stressed that South Africa was "not a welfare state" but a "developmental state" and that "social grants should be linked to economic activity" and economic development.

In the January 8 statement he also referred to another problem which complicates the government’s efforts to come to grips with the housing backlog.

“In 2009 we provided more than 200 000 housing opportunities.

ANC branches should assist in eradicating the problem of people who receive new houses, then rent them out and move back to informal settlements, causing government to chase moving targets. This irresponsible practice has to stop,” the statement read.

Refugees

With a wide range of difficult-to-manage and unpredictable factors like rapid urbanisation and a rampant refugee influx into the country, catching up on the shortage in proper human shelter is a massive challenge.

It was recently reported that South Africa receives more asylum-seekers than any other country in the world. In 2009, approximately 220 000 refugees crossed the country’s borders. The United States was in a distant second place with some 44 000 applications for asylum.

Ironically the country has no migration policy in place. This leaves it without a basis on which to formulate sustainable long-term strategies to deal appropriately with hundreds of thousands of people who seek refuge in the country.

Many of them find their way to informal settlements and besides leading to incidents of xenophobia, it also adds to the pressure on available resources to provide shelter.

Under these circumstances it is small wonder that trade union Solidarity in December last year reported that: “The authorities' housing promises pose another fiasco. Sexwale (Mmnister of human settlements) announced in April (2010) that the housing backlog even exceeded the backlog in 1994: the figure has swelled from 1,5 million in 1994 to 2,1 million at present. Meanwhile the need for housing is growing daily; the number of informal settlements has already reached the 2 700-mark.”

A new approach

According to a recent report by BuaNews  the Department of Human Settlements has embarked on a new approach in addressing the housing challenge in the country.

With more than 2 700 informal settlements in the country, the  department has its work cut out trying to address the housing backlog.

The department has wasted no time acquiring 6 250ha of land and already has started upgrading hundreds of thousands of informal settlement dwellings.

But the department’s plans go beyond just providing a roof over the heads of the about 12 million South Africans in need of better shelter.

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale often stresses the need to provide sustainable and high quality human settlements.

“Where people live must be where they can learn and (have) leisure,” Sexwale says. “Where people stay must be where they can play and pray.”

The department’s approach goes beyond building houses and aims to build proper suburbs, villages and towns.

It is an approach that award-winning architect Mokena Makeka, a speaker at a recent Knowledge Week conference, strongly advocates.

The conference, themed “South African Human Settlements 2030 – Rethinking the Spatial Development Trajectory”, was hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, in partnership with the Department of Human Settlements.

“Sustainable human settlements are composed not only of housing components but of public infrastructure, amenities and space opportunities that actually make a community,” Makeka says.

The aim behind establishing sustainable human settlements was creating humane and dignified living conditions.

“It is critical that the buildings not only have insulation and protection from the elements,” Makeka says.

“When we talk about a sustainable human settlement we are talking about the safety of that child who is walking home from school at night. Are those streets well lit?

That child may not have enough books at home but still has to do homework.

Is there a library nearby where the child can study? Is there a park where an elderly person can feel safe to walk out into the streets?”

Human settlements needed to be placed close to city centres where there were economic opportunities for people.

“If we are going to make sustainable human settlements for the majority of our country, we have to imagine the house as more than just a unit,” Makeka says.

“It has to be about the context which it is in and about making the right choices to allow the people in those areas to have enough opportunities.”

For Ronald Eglin of Afesis-Corplan, a non-governmental organisation that focuses on community-driven development, the key element in resolving the housing backlog is land.

Eglin says the supply of housing is not keeping up with the demand. This is an observation that Sexwale acknowledges.

The minister says the government has hardly moved in breaking the back of the housing backlog that already exists and the numbers keep on growing as a result of population growth.

This increased demand for housing is reflected in the number of informal settlements or slums that have mushroomed.

“They (informal settlements) are not the creation of government,” Sexwale says. “They are, in fact, human parking lots crammed with people hoping and praying to make it into better housing in the cities.”

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