Slums, the enemy within: Part 4, fifth columnists
By: David A. Smith
[Continued from yesterday’s Part 3 ,and the previous Part 2and Part 1.]
In yesterday’s post continuing our series on the enemies within of slum upgrading, we encountered the vociferous and conveniently righteous landlords, who stand to lose their questionable livelihoods when they face new, better competition. Next up are those who, for one reason or another, like the slum as it is now.
Kibera in 2005: phone service for sale
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.
0213_kib
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.
1. Rabblerousers and demagogues
Where there are slums, there are votes to be captured, by making promises of brave deeds to be accomplished if only, or whenever. Brave promises that are never broken because those promising somehow never have the right power at the right time. Consider this example, from Slum upgrading initiatives in
However, tenants in parts of Kibera (e.g.
Doesn’t sound short-sighted at all; the councilor makes a promise that secures votes. If the government does not come through, the councilor tells people, you have to support me more strongly the next time. Unfulfilled promises are the political vaporware that keeps on giving.
The tenants justify non-payment on the basis that structure owners have benefited in the past and that it is now the tenants’ turn to benefit from the slum upgrading.
Particularly in
Josephat Mukuna, 37, says the new housing programme is reminiscent of the Highrise National Housing Corporation project, in which he contributed money, only for outsiders to take all the houses upon completion.
04: Mr Josephat Mukuna says he cannot pay the Sh 1,000 rent for new houses.
The Highrise National Housing Corporation is a visible national disgrace. Worse is that its towers stand right at Soweto East’s edges, where Kiberans daily will pass by them twice, once outbound to work, once homeward.
Kibera in 2005: HNHC towers at the entrance to Soweto East
“I am not prepared to leave for now. I know this project is based on falsehood and the
Government wants to just get us out of Kibera, demolish our houses, chase us from the new buildings and leave us as IDPs.”
What can one say to Mr. Mukuna – you’re crazy? He has seen this happen before. Why should this time be different?
“I am not ready for that,” says Mukuna, a father of four who has been a tenant in Kibera for the past 18 years.
2. Criminals living in or off of the slum
Crime flourishes in slums. Further, crime uses slums, and slums create external crime. If everyone is illegal, then land and property ownership depend on who you know, or who you’ve paid off.
Professor Marie Huchzermeyer, a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, says … due to the existence of a deeply corrupt system of land allocation and profit extraction over the decades, 80% of Kibera residents are tenants of illegal structure owners.
She says residents fear the slum redevelopment will lead to displacement due to non-affordability and corruption.
Strangely enough, very few chronic bribe recipients will raise their hands and claim entitlement to being bribed. Far better to find a useful spokesperson – preferably a Kiberan herself – and fill her full of irrational fears whose consequences coincide with stopping the slum redevelopment and thereby reducing the bribes as a source of income.
Kibera in 2005: Friendly Hair Salon
“Among residents and decision-makers slum upgrading is understood to mean demolition and construction of housing. Therefore considerable awareness raising will be necessary before upgrading can be implemented,” she says.
Awareness-raising? Or bribe reduction?
3. People who want the lowest-cost housing regardless of quality
Some people live in a slum because they care little about their housing quality, and much about its cost.
Tenants opposed to the move say they cannot afford Sh 1,000 monthly rent for the new housing units –– besides many other reasons.
Beatrice Omondi, 37, has already packed her belongings and is now awaiting the day the ministry officials will go with the National Youth Service trucks to move them.
Kibera in 2005: pub upstairs
“I have packed them in boxes and I can’t unpack. I am so elated,” she says.
The mother of four has lived in the shanties since 1987 and never thought even in her wildest dreams one day she would have the opportunity to live in a stone house, let alone own one.
From my visit four years ago, I remember doing the arithmetic. When the total costs of occupancy are factored in – including water and sanitation – those living in Kibera now should be able to afford a single room in a three-room flat
“It’s a new life we are being given,” she says. At the moment, she lives in a rented three mud houses at the heart of the slum with her husband and four children.
She pays Sh3,000 in rent but her monthly bill go up to Sh4,000 because each member of the family pays Sh3 every time they go to the toilet, Sh5 for bathrooms and Sh300 for electricity.
That’s why they can afford it.
Omondi operates a small food cafe and also imports clothes and shoes from
Business flourishes in slums.
Kibera in 2005: Baked goods cooling
Some women fear they may not be allowed to use firewood in the new houses.
They may not be. Those building the new houses need to think through such issues.
Jane Ngolyo, 76, who sells groceries, told us that her future looks bleak if she is to move to the new houses.
“I know the city council will not allow me to operate my small business there so I will be left without any income to pay their rent and feed myself. They will eventually evict me and throw in the streets without anything to eat,” she says.
She has lived in
There will be displacement of some worthy households. I hope there is a relocation/ adjustment plan.
Kibera in 2005: The undeveloped decanting site
Lastly – and the most difficult enemies to address, because they would be offended to be called enemies of progress – are those idealists for whom any compromise is a taint, whose belief in the ideal trumps any concession to practicality. People who suggest solutions like this:
As a first step for Nairobi’s slums, with immediate effect and at very little cost, the patronage by provincial officials (referred to as ‘chiefs’) in corruptly allocating land and extracting fees for improvements made by structure owners could be stopped. The chiefs’ interests are illegitimate and unlawful and they would need no compensation for loss of livelihood. This intervention would not require resources, but instead the level of political will that was present in various anti-corruption initiatives by the new Kenyan government in the past three years.
Why didn’t I think of that?
Maybe because it’s impractical, D