[Imc-ct] Brief for audio feature on housing

[Peter van Heusden]

Terna, Lettie and myself worked out a brief for an audio feature on
housing last Thursday. We will meet again at 11am this Thursday. It is
like this (and still needs to be formatted correctly):

Background:

The state is losing the battle to house the poor in Cape Town (South
Africa??). Instead of decreasing, the housing backlog in urban areas
keeps growing. (Firoz Khan at Stellenbosch University might be a source
on this:
http://www.sopmp.sun.ac.za/contact/main/staffdetail.asp?staff_id=21 -
and on policy Marie Huchzermeyer
http://web.wits.ac.za/Academic/EBE/ArchPlan/Staff/AcademicStaff/Academic+Staff-Profiles.htm)


2) So what are the people doing, in the absence of sufficient state
housing delivery? We examine different strategies that people are
undertaking to house themselves:

a) PHP (People's Housing Process) - the PHP is a government policy
(inspired by the work of the South African Homeless People's Federation)
to support poor people who are building their own homes, by providing a
housing subsidy and (allegedly) technical support for groups of people
who buy their own land, secure their own plans and ultimately build
their own homes. Target group: Hangberg (need contacts... Donovan?)

b) Land occupation - thousands (millions??) of South Africans live in
self-built shacks on land which is illegally occupied. The process of
illegal occupation is a risky one, and we interview people from the
Zillerain Heights informal settlement in Grassy Park, which is currently
facing eviction by the City of Cape Town (contacts: Lorraine Heunis 083
431 9794 and Eleanor Hoedemaker 072 449 0436)

c) Land occupation part 2 - tenure for the poor is seldom secure, as the
history of the Kosova informal settlement in Langa attests to. Formed by
people displaced by fires that ravaged the Joe Slovo settlement in late
2004, Kosova residents have been told that they must move to "temporary
housing" in Delft, but they say they refuse to move (source: contact via
Asanda's father ??)

3) What is good and bad in each case? What are the costs of making the
choices that these people are making?

4) Finally, what is the relation between policy and the choices people
are making? In what ways can state policy be changed to support people's
efforts to house themselves (source: Marie H, possibly a COSATU voice
like Tony Ehrenreich from COSATU?? http://www.cosatu.org.za/cosaturs.htm#wc)