‘If one is a citizen, one can’t be homeless’
Quite a while ago, I was watching this TED Talk and a comment stuck in my mind: ‘If one is a citizen, one can’t be homeless’ (Ananya Roy, UC, Berkeley). Such is the strength of this dream of a shelter, this promise of owning a house that people create a saint out of a demagogue. Rightly so, when they see the headcount around them increase and space dwindle, they expect miracles. Obviously, it is not the duty of the government to construct houses for people but to create enabling conditions – to grant and protect property rights, to provide credit support, to facilitate investment, technology and innovation in infrastructure etc. And it is in these conditions that the miracle resides.
Affordable housing is not only the issue of the urban/rural poor but also the struggling educated urban middle class living in rentals. It is one big policy question in a low income country that is sixth most populous in the world and the most urbanised in the region. I’m talking of Pakistan. It’s here that we need 281 houses per day to accommodate our ever increasing population. It’s here that half of the city dwellers live in slums. Reportedly, total housing demand in the country will rise to 13 million units in 2025 from 8 million estimated in 2009. How are we ‘addressing’ these challenges?
Affordable housing is not only the issue of the urban/rural poor but also the struggling educated urban middle class living in rentals. It is one big policy question in a low income country that is sixth most populous in the world and the most urbanised in the region.
Let me give you some examples. In Karachi, 188,000 people were displaced and 24,000 houses/shops were demolished from 1992 to 2007 in the name of ‘development’. In the recent past, Capital Development Authority (CDA) Islamabad came up with a plan to bulldoze its informal settlements on the pretext of security. One cannot correct a mistake by committing another one. At first, you didn’t plan for them and now you are leaving them in the lurch. The government of Sindh is extending cooperation to Bahria Town to launch its new projects in interior Sindh (reportedly one is being built on Zardari sahib’s landholding in Nawabshah). Certainly, there can be no objection to it. But there’s a big question on priorities and seriousness. Why can’t this government strike a partnership with the same group (or any other) on developing low cost residences in Karachi when the current shortage of housing stock in the city stands at 1.3 million? Talking of preferences, let us review the same in Punjab. More than 50 per cent of dwellers of kachi abadies (informal settlements) in the province have yet to be given property rights. Ashiana Scheme is commendable as a beginning yet the government has to increase its funding for low cost housing. Compare the budgetary allocation (2014-15) of PKR 1,500 million for low income housing and a USD 7 billion mixed use venture in Lahore – Ravi Riverfront Project. The National Housing Policy has yet to see the light of the day since 2001.
The housing sector in the country is an area where everyone has to play its part; (i) the government, as it has a huge economic value (ii) the private sector, because it offers an under-capitalised market (iii) there are really deserving people out there that look for the support of charity groups and (iv) the NGOs should move ahead from mobilisation, resistance and advocacy to managing social housing projects.
The ‘vision’ of our political leadership should correspond to the real time ‘visuals’ of our cities and towns that host terrible human dwellings. The value judgment here is to make them healthy and livable, not world class or global cities.
Once there is a realisation of bridging gaps in this domain, there are successful models for the government to follow. If they want to deal with it themselves, Singapore’s incredible story of Housing Development Board (HDB) is there to learn. HDB has converted worst of city slums to nice residential apartments with all modern civic amenities. Now it accommodates more than 80 per cent of citizens in public housings, especially the low income groups. The second case scenario is from Mumbai, India, ‘Slum Rehabilitation Scheme 1995’, if the government wants the market to handle it in collaboration with the community. In this plan, the private builders rehabilitated the entire settlement on half of the land available. The rest was given to them as an incentive to sell in the land market. The whole process was supervised by the local community organisations. Now, creating incentives for the private sector and community involvement are two important factors to be considered.
The ‘vision’ of our political leadership should correspond to the real time ‘visuals’ of our cities and towns that host terrible human dwellings. The value judgment here is to make them healthy and livable, not world class or global cities. And the policy commitment should be, ‘if one is a citizen, one can’t be homeless’.
