Slums, the enemy within: Part 3, Illicit landlords
By: David A. Smith
[Continued from Thursday, October 29th Part 2 and the previous Part 1.]
In yesterday’s post, we discovered that despite its many palpable benefits, and the visible reality of its construction, many Kibera residents are greeting Kibera’s first slum upgrading with fear.
Kibera in 2005: Whom can you trust?
Background: A while ago [Early September – Ed.], Kenya’s newspaper The East African Standard published a great and extensive series on the proposed upgrading of Kibera: Africa’s largest slum, which I visited in 2005.
Kibera in 2005: photo taken during my visit
The articles covered community resistance in the Standard, Kenya, the indignity of having no toilets, slumlord exploitation, slumdweller fears, an idealist’s critique, the power of savings, the potential to reform building codes, and an editorial endorsing affordable housing (which the Standard mistakenly but understandably calls ‘rent control’). Woven throughout the series were the main themes that show why slums, though hard to eradicate, are also hard to upgrade.
Although the program will provide the lucky relocates with much improved housing at only a small increase in rent from what they are paying structure owners, these residents – some of whom have known little else their entire lives – have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fears. Where do these fears come from? From those who win from a slum, such as landlords – or, as they prefer to be called, structure owners.
Kibera in 2005: Most of what you see is owned, according to somebody
You might expect such slumlords to be embarrassed, or to voice their objections through useful mouthpieces like the residents. Instead they’re visible and belligerent:
The landlords are bitter because they are about to lose property that has been their source of livelihood for decades. They therefore want compensation.
Do the landlords have legal title to their property?
Most of the about 500 landlords in Soweto-East village have been earning their daily bread from the shanties they own in the slum, some for up to 30 years.
They own the shacks by right of incumbency, and by right of force.
The proposed demolition of the structures once the tenants are relocated has caused fury among the owners, who insist they must be compensated since they will lose land and other property.
I’ve been told – unverified – that a structure owner recoups his capital investment (in the structure, that is) in a handful of months. I doubt this – the payoffs to the enforcement-protection structure likely consume a major slice of his Net Operating Income.
Kibera in 2005: Bakery in the slum
In any case, the slumlords are vocal:
One of the landlords is Cyrus Kimemia who earns Sh18,000 from 24 structures.
That’s Sh 750 per month, as compared with Sh 1,000 per month in rent for a solid, one-room embryo house. No wonder Mr. Kimemia feels threatened.
The father of five has lived in Kibera for 24 years and says the then-DO gave him the land in 1984.
‘Gave’ him the land? Who was this person, and was the land his to give? Did such a person even exist? When there is no title system, no claim can be refuted. Property rights inure solely based on current power, and that implies current bribery.
Upon retiring as a clerk with the Postal Corporation of
He says. Still, I was told that more than half of all structure owners are civil servants.
How can the government expect to enforce anti-slumlord laws when half of those doing the enforcing are slumlords by night?
Coined in the Spanish Civil War
“That is why I feel so much pain as I cannot just sit back and watch as my retirement benefits disappear. I want to be given title deeds for my plots or relocated,” he says.
Irresolution is the enemy of reinvestment.
Also to be affected is Millicent Anyango, a mother of six, who is a widow. The 32-year-old landlady owns seven houses. “I stay in two of them with my family and earn a livelihood from renting out the other five at a cost of Sh600 per month. I can say without fear that I am not ready to leave
Where residents are fearful, structure owners are not. Perhaps they pay friends in higher places?
Kibera in 2005: furniture factory
She wondered how she would cater for her family’s basic needs if the structures were demolished. Millicent, who has lived in Soweto East village for 20 years, says she is expecting nothing short of title deeds for her plots.
She’s never had them before. Why be granted them now?
She says she can use the title deeds as security for a bank loan to start another venture for a livelihood. “If I leave with nothing, how does the Government expect me to even pay rent for the new house?” she asks.
Ms. Anyango, in other words, wants to be paid eminent domain compensation to relocate; she who has no property rights wants to be compensated as if she did.
Josephat Odhiambo, 49, also a landlord says he built 25 units in 1984 using savings he accrued from small-scale businesses. He says the then-DO gave him the land.
The structure owners’ claims also have the same ring, don’t they? As if they had rehearsed their story into a polished tale that is irrefutable because all the evidence is verbal, and all of it is old.
Kibera in 2005: illegal jerry-rigged wiring to steal power
Besides the houses where he collects between Sh 600 and Sh 1,000 a month, the father of eight also sells water.
In slums, water-selling is big business.
When the project started in 2003, Odhiambo says, the impression the Government gave them was that it was to benefit everyone.
He says. And what would you have done differently, Mr. Odhiambo, had you known?
“They made us believe that it was like giving Sh20 to somebody who had Sh5,” he says.
But he says they later learnt the structures were to be demolished, stone houses erected and then sold to former tenants.
He is among those who had moved to court to seek an injunction over the impending demolition.
Kibera in 2005: wide road through Soweto East
About 84 landlords went to court last week and obtained an injunction to stop the demolition of their structures for a week.
For a week.
The landlords found themselves an ally of convenience: newer residents.
Walter Hongo, a member of Soweto SEC, says residents who do not want to move from the slums were not part of the initial plan that started in 2003. He says the dwellers have teamed up with landlords who have been making huge profits from houses constructed on Government land.
Almost certainly correct.
“We divided Soweto East into four zones: A, B, C and D and gave each tenant a number and an identification card.”
As SDI has shown, enumeration is critical, else everyone claims the benefit, not just those who actually lived in the slum.
Dharavi household enumeration card
“Those in Zone A are the first to move. There are many people who moved in after the cards had been issued and these are the ones saying they won’t go because they do not have units at the site,” Hongo says.
Many a slum upgrading program, from Dharavi to HOPE VI, has grappled with angry disputes over who’s-in versus who’s-out.
Kibera in 2005: shoes for sale
[Continued tomorrow in Part 4.]