“Either you bring the water to LA or you bring LA to the water.”

– Noah Cross, Chinatown

“‘Course I’m respectable.  I’m old.”

Someday I’ll post in detail about Chinatown, because it (and its spiritual cousin, True Confessions) is a great film about housing development and municipal infrastructure, whose economic power did much to define Los Angeles – a city that grew where it wanted to grow.

Self-gerrymandered with self-interest in mind: Los Angeles

In a similar way, the typhoon-battered city of Manila is now proposing to grow by relocation, moving those who lived on its squalid and polluted river banks out to a new city a-building.  As reported in Bulatlat:

16 Oct 2009: Relocation Solution Poses a Dilemma to Slum Dwellers Made Homeless by Ondoy

Days after Ondoy struck, the government declared that it would no longer allow these poor Filipinos to return to their shattered homes.

Manila waterway slums before the typhoons

What is the ‘home’ to go back to?  Disaster can create an urban palimpsest, wiping away everything but the land itself.  So, as in Joe Slovo in Cape Town, we have the tension – an urgent need to do something very quickly, and a unique opportunity to do something very profound.

MANILA – In the aftermath of typhoon Ondoy, many were quick to blame the urban poor living along the creeks, waterways and riverbanks of Metro Manila. Their shanties and their garbage block these sewage systems, hence worsening the impact of the typhoon, so goes the familiar criticism.

Nonsense.  While I have not toured the now-destroyed riverbank slums, the pictures I saw at the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum, coupled with the scale of flooding, make this claim just about impossible. 

Days after the disaster, the government declared that it would no longer allow these poor Filipinos to return to their shattered homes.  Vice President Noli de Castro, who also chairs the Housing Urban Development Coordinating Council, confirmed in a news report that the families who were living along waterways and riverbanks would no longer be allowed to rebuild their homes in those areas.

Mr. de Castro’s long been interested in housing and slums

Anti-poor, or another reason?

He said government-acquired lands outside of the metropolis are more than enough to give homes to the displaced victims of Ondoy.

A good idea … if built fast enough.

De Castro offered 1,400 houses that may be utilized as relocation sites for displaced victims of Ondoy.

Sounds better …

Of these, 400 units are located in Towerville Resettlement in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan; 250 units in Southville 4 in Sta. Rosa, Laguna; 500 units in Southville 5 in Biñan, Laguna; and 250 units in Southville 5-A, also in Biñan.

Metro Manila – growing like Los Angeles

That’s the alternative offered – not a return to the insecure, filthy, disease-ridden rabbit warrens you knew, but to cleanly blocked and properly built new house.  There’s a powerful case for it.

“Our cities are so bad I sometimes wonder if we should just build completely new ones from scratch.”

– Quote from a Mexican expert at the AHI symposium

Mexico City, 28-30 October, 2009

Manila waterway slums before the typhoons

Imagine if you could de-densify the slums by expanding the city.  Can you?

He said there are 5,721 lots that may be developed to accommodate the displaced families.

Reblocking – Solly Angel’s arterial grid of dirt roads, plus security of tenure in your own plot of land – is a powerful combination.  Give people s plan and confidence in their piece of it and they will build.

“Technically, there is nothing wrong with the relocation of the families living along the areas that the government deems as danger zones,” Jon Vincent Marin, spokesman of the urban-poor group Kadamay, told Bulatlat.

A group worthy of your support

I bumped into Kadamay at Asia-Pacific.  I liked their thinking and tend to trust their perspectives.  Nor is he an unthinking doomsayer:

Marin emphasized that their organization understands the direct and immediate threat that storm surges could bring to these families.

Yet he’s a further realist:

“But if they will be relocated to areas where there is no social services and job opportunities, then there is something wrong with the relocation,” he pointed out.

Ay, there’s the rub.

Will the government follow through by creating not just a relocation camp but an actual city beyond the city?

“The government thinks that the only solution to the problem is to relocate urban-poor communities outside Metro Manila where they would not survive,” Marin said.

People move to cities in search of a better life.  Relocating them to the far countryside without income opportunities is like pulling up weeds and transplanting them to the desert; they’ll die, and your city will still have weeds.

He said these families would eventually return to the metropolis and live along the riverbanks and waterways because their condition in the relocation areas are worse than what they would be leaving behind in Metro Manila.

One cannot repatriate people into the rural poverty and expect them to stay here.  But you can bring the city to the country.  Paging Noah Cross.

Or should we?

“I’m going to bring LA to the water.”

As a participant at AHI’s recent Mexico City symposium on land irresolution commented, “People can become urbanized without moving.”

Manila waterway slums before the typhoons

Chinatown’s Noah Cross wanted the valley to become Los Angeles simply to boost the value of its land.  He had no thought of affordability except insofar as it could be achieved by building blocks and locks of houses.  “The future, Mister Gitts, the future!” 

Marin said the mere location of the resettlement areas pose problems to the families. “Most of these relocation sites are located in remote areas. They would have no source of income there. Naturally, they would want to go back to the metropolis, where at least they would have something to eat.”

He didn’t foresee that LA would grow so vast that even the valley would be built-up and dense, or that its most enduring feature would be the marvelous grid of streets, not the boxy bungalows he scattered like a human orchard.  He can be excused his lack of foresight regarding the need for social infrastructure, but the Manilans have no such excuse.

“At the right time, and in the right place, a man is capable of just about anything.”

In a recent relief operation, the Citizen’s Disaster Response Center found that most of the houses in the resettlement area in Marilao, Bulacan, had been washed away. “The houses there were made from substandard materials,” deputy executive director Carlos Padolina told Bulatlat. He said the walls were mere layers of hallow blocks and without the thick metal braces inside that would have supported these.

You must fix the houses.  You must fix the income-generation possibilities.

Should the “relocatees” choose to continue working in Metro Manila, they would have to spend so much for their fares to go home to their new homes, the transportation cost eating into the little income they have.

Manila waterway slums before the typhoon: bathing

In such a case, the families would solve their problem by geographically dividing: the earner in the city, his or her family in the country.  That’s family-destabilizing.  So is this:

Marin added that most of the relocation sites do not have access to basic services such as hospitals and schools.

City-building involves building new economies.  If you want people to come, you must build it.  Build a social infrastructure: homes, schools, jobs, shopping, safety.  Expand the city; bring it to the country.

And since the framework of the housing services of the government is profit-oriented, the resettlement units are not given free.

That’s sound policy: People value only what they pay for.

Be it ever some humble, you should pay something for it

Only this week, de Castro said that the resettlement for the victims of Ondoy will be offered at an “affordable” package of two-year moratorium on their payments, with a monthly amortization of roughly P200 at 6% per annum that is payable in 30 years.

That’s an extremely affordable monthly payment. 

But Marin said that “even if it’s just P300 to P500 a month, we have to consider the kind of jobs that they have. They have children to feed and to send to school.”

Yes, affordability is measured relative to income.  It has to be.

“For a genuine housing service for the poor,” Marin said, “a big fund is needed.” But he told Bulatlat that these projects of the government only receive 0.4 to 0.6 percent of the total budget for the expenditure of the government.

Affordable housing is expensive for government.  Money is a gating factor. 

No entry into housing without money

More money is better – but some money is much better than no money, and smart money is best of all.

 “Relocation should not only include houses. It should include social services and livelihood for the people,” Marin said.

In a statement, Kadamay reiterated that the devastation that Ondoy has brought could be the perfect opportunity for the government to change their housing projects for the poor.

Yes, if one can move quickly and wisely.  Not easy.

“We should all remember that the poor communities living along the riverbanks and waterways are only there because of too much poverty, lack of job opportunities, source of livelihood and social services,” he said. “They are not dusts that the government can sweep under the rug.” (Bulatlat.com)

If that happens, it will be as Noah Cross put it:

“‘Course I’m respectable.  I’m old.  Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

– Noah Cross, Chinatown

“And I lasted long enough”

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By: David A. Smith

It’s taken three days’ worth of posting to describe the three days’ worth of disaster-recovery reblocking that occurred at Joe Slovo township in Cape Town, and like the reblocking, we weren’t quite done in that interval.  Now for the most important part – what we can learn from this?

Joe Slovo, March 2009

(A large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn.  My quotes are from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane )

What went right

When the palimpsest is suddenly scrubbed clean, action must be swift and coordinated.  As it can take a lifetime to become an overnight success, it takes months and even years of community-building to establish trust. 

[1.  Idea preparation]  iKhayalami invested a great deal of time into building a relationship with the Joe Slovo leadership over the previous year.  Many barriers that would normally be development obstacles were rapidly overcome through a level of trust that, even after a traumatic fire, allowed iKhayalami to move in and start blocking with the community.

The trust can lie dormant until catalyzed by a spark – in this case, a tragic fire.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

In a palimpsest environment, all things are possible; the universe has not formed.  So it’s imperative that everyone be included, because anyone excluded will become the process’s enemy.

[2.  Public democratic process]  The public meeting, held on the Monday morning, achieved a buy-in from the community and although cut short – before all voices could be heard – was nonetheless critical for the success of the blocking.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

As we’ve seen with SDI, for an effectiveness process, the slum dwellers themselves have to be in charge:

[3.  Self-managed] An effective decision was to only supply materials, knowledge and advice to Joe Slovo, and leave the process of blocking to the community to manage and negotiate. 

As a consultant, I learned this lesson a long time ago.  Although I know more than my client does about how to solve a particular problem technically, that knowledge should never put me in charge of the client’s goal-setting. 

A good consultant never tells his client what to want, only the consequences of pursuing what the client wants.

What resulted was a community coming together, and helping the process grow.

A good client learns to hear what the consultant is advising about consequences, and to adapt her desires in light of the consultant’s expert advice.

iKhayalami is a non-profit organisation whose primary aim is to upgrade informal settlements. It focuses on designing and manufacturing affordable housing solutions that are easy to transport, quick to erect and offer a range of opportunities for future upgrading.  This is primarily an immediate solution to the national crisis of inadequate shelter, but also provides an effective and rapid response in the event of township hazards such as fire and flooding.  

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Equality of opportunity does not need equality of loss, nor necessarily equality of outcome:

[4.  Fair process and fair outcome]  Deciding what should happen when people’s original shacks were larger than the new iKhayalami shelter. 

While iKhayalami were happy to provide larger shelters in these instances, the leadership was adamant that all new shelters should be of uniform size so as to not create a sense of inequality amongst the community.  This was firmly adhered to.

Men in particular are bonded by uniformity; as every army’s induction and boot camp know, to anneal them into new forms you must hammer out the old ones.  We become brothers when we are all miserable together – and if it is as a community that Joe Slovo’s residents gained the leverage that brought them free homes, then it is up to the community to adjudicate what constitutes equality in that case.  I wouldn’t have expected that.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Learning by doing is important, as is persuading by showing:

[5.  Piloting] This was further strengthened by the decision to initially block just six shelters, to create a visible an example and help people understand the concept.  It also ensured shelters kept in line, as material was only released once bordering properties had been upgraded.  This maintained active community participation, as people had a vested interest in blocking reaching their area.

Interesting dynamics: the grid exists in everyone’s imagination, but before anyone can build a house into the grid, the buildout has to reach this part of the grid.  Conversely, beneficiaries who wanted free materials were obliged to buy into the community grid vision – freedom came with a price.

This resulted in shelters being constructed quicker and cheaper, due to increased man-power, but also resulted in significantly fewer disputes as the community was now actively involved in their own development and given the opportunity to guide it themselves.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Not everything worked exactly as the technical advisors would have wished.

What went wrong

[6.  Refusniks]  Some shack dwellers were unwilling to replace their structures with iKhayalami shelters, some even to move theirs back within the demarcated lanes.  While attempts to move shelters were made through negotiation between them and leadership, in cases where resistance continued, the lanes were simply redrawn around the offending shack, and carrying on beyond.

In effect, the non-conforming uses have been grandfathered into the community.  Will the grid be strong enough that over time they will be brought one by one into conformity?  Or will it revert to randomness and inefficiency?

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Back in the present, variation and individuality appeared as they always do.  So did a gradual erosion of unanimity:

[7.  Quality variation]  It proved hard to maintain quality control, as the situation was one that developed organically.  There were instances where building material was released, when neighboring properties were yet to be blocked.  This meant some shelters ended up not lining up with others. 

People become impatient and the inevitability effect takes over.

Control needs to be maintained as it is the promise of materials which turned out to be the most effective tool for negotiation.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Real estate is also a professional business, and slum dwellers are not real estate professionals.

[8.  Lack of training]  Problems also emerged with people erecting shelters too fast, and without proper supervision, resulting in weaker structures, and in some cases ground that was uneven.

In general, people who own property are entitled to renovate, refurbish, and remodel it – but in the formal city, such alternations are subject to zoning and building codes.  A perfectly informal slum has neither, and when Joe Slovo was reborn after the fire, in accepting the free assistance it accepted the city’s dominion over structure and zoning.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The better housing is, the more formal it is; and that makes it more structural, more technological, and more complicated.

[9.  Uncoordinated materials]  Khayalami intended to only supply material to construct the walls of the shelter, and then use material supplied by the City for the roof.  However, the City’s material was incompatible with iKhayalami’s design, the wood being to short and stout and the zinc sheets too thin. 

As a result, more haphazard construction of the roofs resulted, making any future installation of ceilings more difficult.  Future coordination between iKhayalami and the City, as to what materials to supply, would result in a far higher quality structure while minimizing costs.

Before the fire, I doubt the City and iKhayalami would have thought it worthwhile to collaborate on rebuilding standards.  The fire forged a linkage between them.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

[10.  Interruption]  The City, suspending the distribution of material and food resulted more time and energy being spent by iKhayalami and the leadership in securing additional resources than in managing the development process, hampering efforts to block adequately.

It’s hard to fault the City on this point; they announced a three-day window and they held to it.  Perhaps more illuminating is the necessity for disaster-relief planners to recognize that it’s not enough to rush replacements to the site – you should take a deep breath and imagine not replicating the old but improving it.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

In the end, it always does come down to money.  Slum upgrading is municipal infrastructure, and that has a large non-recoverable cost.

[11.  Lack of subsidy]  Finance was the single biggest issue facing iKhayalami’s efforts to upgrade Joe Slovo and the biggest single hindrance to the wide spread roll-out of blocking. 

Not finance – subsidy.  These costs are non-recoverable, and the homes will have minimal resale value.  Although they have high occupancy value and that makes them a worthwhile expenditure of public or charitable resources, no one should be deluded that turning on a lending tap will magically transform the slums.

While iKhayalami did admirably in securing private funding to sustain construction, this is a government issue, one which can only succeed with buy-in and support from the City.

Donors are scaffolding; they bridge from vision to pilot, and from pilot to political change.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The story has a happy ending:

In conclusion

While these shelters are not perfect, and certainly dissimilar to more formal housing projects, iKhayalami was able to re-shelter a significant number of people:

Joe Slovo, March 2009

1. In conditions far above what they had before

2. In situ

3. In a way which prepared the site for future introduction of basic services. 

All these are enduring achievements.   Because slums are places where private investment has outrun public infrastructure, the rationalization of informal private settlements should lead public investment – in fact, it should induce public investment.  The city has granted the Joe Slovo residents tacit citizenship by handing them disaster packages and working with them in their deployment; it will be hard for them to retract it when the infrastructure can now be laid down logically.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

This was all done at a cost of less than 10% of what more formal structures cost and in just a few weeks.

Self-built means self-labored, which means cheap.

Remarkably given the circumstances, it was the community that came to the table in this instance and not government. 

Not remarkable at all: networks and markets always move faster than government.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

In South Africa, decent housing is a fundamental right enshrined in the ANC Charter, but that doesn’t mean everyone is well housed.

Estimates suggest a government house may only be delivered 30 years after being on the waiting list. 

Or until there’s a cleansing fire, which creates the urban palimpsest.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

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By: David A. Smith

Within twenty-four hours of a fire that destroyed more than 5900 homes in the Cape Town informal settlement of Joe Slovo, more progress had been made in community redevelopment than had been accomplished in the previous fifteen years’ of confrontation.  The palimpsests had been scraped, but what would be written on the newly-clean parchment?

 (A large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn.  My quotes are from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane )

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Would, in fact, the government do what it said?

Tuesday 10th March 2009

On Tuesday, blocking continued throughout the day.  A tense scenario unfolded around 09:00 when Disaster Management informed the community that only fire victims who were resident on the original Government “Thubelishe“ list, compiled many months previously, would receive a starter pack.

When free goodies are being handed out, everybody wants one … but not everybody deserves one.  Residency is used as the proxy for entitlement, which can be a challenge because even if the slum is resilient, individual slum households emigrate and immigrate continuously.  This challenge was solved in the usual way possible only after a disaster:

The Joe Slovo leadership, together with a large crowd of community members, held an informal meeting with members of the Informal Housing Department and after a heated discussion agreed that everyone who had lost a shack in the fire would receive a starter pack.

Incumbency defined as presence at the catastrophe; entitlement lubricated by another dollop of government money.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Although Ikhayalami’s efforts to reblock were often hampered by these sorts of issues, by the end of Tuesday there were two clear lanes of plots marked out, each 4m x 5m, back-to-back with three lanes each 1.5m wide in between. The leadership, together with the community, then began allocating these plots to the fire victims who had been in that area.

Just as Manhattan was gridded first and then developed, here too it was critical that the grid be laid down before settlement occurs.  As AHI Affiliate Solly Angel observes in his seminal paper, An arterial grid of dirt roads, without the plan there will be no structure and no efficiency.  But if you lay out the plan first, then everyone can build individually and entrepreneurially within the plan. 

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Wednesday 11th March

blocking carried on throughout Wednesday, with iKhayalami continuing to work with the leadership and community to lay out plots and ensure people adhered to the lanes.

Traffic cops are useful if they are transparent and impartial.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The first batch of iKhayalami material was delivered at noon, just enough for four shelters, but enough to show the community what was involved and what the upgraded areas might look like.  The arrival of this material proved to be a key turning point as people now had a clear understanding of what iKhayalami, and the leadership, were describing.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the solution is its salesware.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Residents began to approach iKhayalami directly with requests to support blocking in their areas.  In many instances people were willing to even dismantle their shacks and relocate in-line, in expectation that they would receive building material at a later stage, which speeded up the process considerably. 

What a turnaround.  In 2½ days, the same people who had spent fifteen years resisting calls for demolition and rebuilding were now eager to demolish their own homes, because they could visualize what they would be getting, they could grasp why it would be better, and they could trust that they would receive what they had been promised.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

People are suspicious, but people are smart.

This process led to greater community participation, and negotiating patiently with the community speeded up the process considerably.  While all decisions as to the relocation of sites, and the allocation of materials, were handled by the Joe Slovo leadership, the Ikhayalami team assisted families in construction the panels. By 20:00 that night, 15 families had shelters in various stages of completion.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

It’s so critical to provide some short-term tangible progress.  Words and personal credibility will take you only so far.

The community, now more mobilised, also organised nightly patrols, aimed both at guarding the building materials from theft and to keep order in Joe Slovo while people slept in tents.  This resulted in almost no material going missing, even when considering the high degree of hands-on involvement by the community

Self-policing, Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street,” is a hallmark of a genuine community; it’s an index of formalization and citizenship.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Thursday 12th March

On Thursday, Disaster Management failed to arrive on site and announced their involvement in Joe Slovo had ended. 

They would no longer be distributing food or government materials, even though 120 families remained without.  This caused a serious problem for the partnership that not only had now to find materials for these remaining families, to supplement what iKhaylami could offer, but also to secure food for those still busy rebuilding and unable to work.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Here is Stone Soup at work, though.  Everybody wants in on success.  Get a project going, demonstrate that it will be completed and will be something to be proud of, and people come out of the woodwork bringing ingredients and seasoning.

While donations of both were eventually secured, this seriously slowed the process of blocking as the partnership was directed away from the negotiation and planning of the new township, critical in sustaining momentum, to one of logistics and emergency fundraising.

Nonetheless, blocking has continued in Joe Slovo, and by the end of March, 120 new iKhayalami shelters had been constructed, almost all in accordance with blocking.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The community was transformed – physically in rational grids, socially in the development of leadership, and in network connection to the city and to assistance providers.  All in three days.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Was this a fluke?  If not, why did it work?

[Concluded tomorrow in Part 4.]

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By: David A. Smith

As we saw yesterday, for fifteen years Joe Slovo had been an informal settlement in the Cape Flats that resisted all attempts at structural improvement.  One night, that all changed:

Joe Slovo, March 2009

(A large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn.  My quotes are from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane )

Monday 9th March 2009

The fire began in Joe Slovo in the early morning.  Within a few minutes, it had spread widely, fueled by intense winds.  Eyewitnesses described the panic as people sought to save themselves, their families and possession from the flames.

At one point the fire bridged a road separating two sections of the township, as flaming sheets of PVC plastic were blown across.  Streetlights blew, cables melted.  So thick was the smoke it was impossible to breathe, let alone to save possessions. 

Thankfully, no lives were lost, no serious injuries sustained.  But 512 shelters burned to the ground.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

A palimpsest is a previously-written parchment that has been scraped clean.  Parchment was so valuable it had to be reused, so medieval copyists learned how to scrub the delicate surface, removing the former writing so new wisdom could be set down. 

Palimpsest – new writing perpendicular to the old

Like urban land that has to be reblocked before it can be formalized, and formalized before it can be upgraded.

What is blocking?

An informal settlement usually grows haphazardly; shacks are built where free space is available.  Blocking, a fundamental preparatory step for in-situ upgrading, reorganizes the shacks to align in rows, back-to-back, with straight pathways in between. 

I’ve encountered blocking around the world, particularly in East Asia, where CODI and ACHR use community-led reblocking, particularly along waterways and coastlines, to improve sanitation and enhance density.

After blocking, fires are more controllable, the community is safer for residents, and creates space for future upgrade of key municipal services.  The township has the possibility of formalisation as adequate mapping [to establish plots for entitling – Ed.] can take place.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Blocking is intangible infrastructure – it creates the grid onto which critical utility services like water, sanitation, and electrical power lines can be laid.

The fire created a palimpsest – physically by demolishing the structures, politically by wiping out established notions of security, and economically by triggering large-scale disaster-relief funding.

The fire department was first on the scene, followed shortly by Disaster Management, and attempted to douse the fire, which helped until the pumps ran dry and could not be refilled, presumably due to a lack of hydrants.

Lack of public infrastructure led to lack of private property.  In Caesar’s Rome, homeowners were required to maintain filled leather water buckets on every floor and every corridor.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The management of iKhayalami were woken by a call from the Joe Slovo leadership informing them that Joe Slovo was burning and needed their assistance. 

First payoff – there was already a political network of trust built up over several years.  Without that trust, the phone call would not have happened.

Later that morning the leadership began a count of the victims and to draw up a list of those who had lost homes and needed assistance. 

Enumeration is critical. 

That we may wander o’er this bloody field

To book our dead, and then to bury them.

“To book our dead, and then to bury them“

Also critical is community participation and community acceptance of those they now and trust:

A small confrontation developed between the community and the City when officials suggested bringing in bulldozers to level the area, so that the township could be rebuilt on flatter land.  However, the community was highly opposed to the proposal, not because they didn’t want the area flattened, but because distrust was so strong that they feared this may be just a ploy to clear the area and forcibly relocate the residents to Delft, which it wasn’t.

When iKhayalami arrived to assess the damage, it was then that the leadership suggested that however tragic the fire was, it created a blank canvas, in Joe Slovo, where they were able to rebuild in accordance with blocking. 

Ideas germinate and sprout – like the idea of a palimpsest.

It was also requested by the leadership that iKhayalami negotiate with Disaster Management, in regards to the distribution of material, as they were busy compiling the lists.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

I’ve encountered this dynamic in my work with SDI.  If one comes from the formal world, the world of suits and spreadsheets and laptops and vocabulary, one is automatically suspect.  Trust is earned but it is personal trust, not corporate or institutional, which means it must be personally maintained and refreshed. 

Disaster Management’s response was cool as they feared responsibility for any future fires may then be laid upon them. 

Entirely understandable – and intriguing shift of responsibility.  Do informal communities and informal settlers have the same rights to services as other city dwellers?  That depends on which government agency one encounters – and as more agencies treat those they encounter as having individual rights, more settlements gain community rights.  Bit by bit, the community is bootstrapped into the formal city. 

Plots marked with string: Joe Slovo, March 2009

That requires the community, for its part, to live up to its responsibilities of citizenship, one of which is mobilization.

While some officials were personally supportive of the idea, they insisted that previous attempts elsewhere had not succeeded and it was pointless trying to mobilise Joe Slovo, especially in the aftermath of a traumatic fire.

Furthermore, Disaster Management warned they would only be on site for three days, given the high number of emergencies they had to respond to. 

Joe Slovo, March 2009

That challenge threw down the gauntlet: if you cannot agree, and soon, you will all lose.

After that all emergency packs, clothes and food distribution would be suspended regardless of those still in need.

Disaster response requires having a plan all ready to go – and at Joe Slovo, people did not:

It was requested that Disaster Management withhold from delivering their starter packs to site until a clear plan had been agreed as to how to block Joe Slovo.

That required broad stakeholder participation:

Nonetheless, the leadership and iKhayalami decided to proceed and at noon a community meeting was held with the aim of both finalising the list of those who had lost accommodation and also to introduce the concept of blocking.  Five hundred people participated.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

There was an overall interest in blocking, although most residents still had yet to grasp the idea.  However, halfway through the meeting it was interrupted by Disaster Management announcing they were to begin distributing material. 

Although this caused a sudden panic amongst the community, and the meeting quickly dissolved as people rushed off to secure materials, it was felt the critical buy-in towards blocking had been attained.

More likely each householder was so preoccupied with securing his or her own packet of free goods that they did not have time to debate the nuances of blocking.  That created a temporary political vacuum which the technical assistance providers could fill.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

With the help of the leadership, iKhayalami began measuring out plots, using rope and pegs, in one corner of Joe Slovo.  Plots measured were 5m x 4m wide, and back-to-back, with a 1.5m walkway in between, deemed to be the maximum size to achieve both a reasonable degree of space for families, while fitting the original number of residents back in.

These are small houses; even allowing only a minimum of space between buildings, the typical dwelling will be one room, maybe 12m² (130 square feet), with no running water.  People will carry water back in jugs, and will use common toilets. 

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The size was also based on the assumption that material acquired by residents from the City would be used to supplement the iKhayalami shelters.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Towards the end of the afternoon, iKhayalami started to erect their emergency army tents that allowed the community a safe place to sleep, close to site, so that commuting back and forth could be minimised.  This was a very popular move as people were also reluctant to leave Joe Slovo for fear of being evicted. 

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Large set of pictures here

By the end of the Monday, virtually no construction had begun on site, as people waited to see what would happen.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Would the promises be kept?

[Continued tomorrow in Part 3.]

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The best thing to happen to the informal settlers of Cape Town’s Joe Slovo township began with a spark:

March 9, 2009

On 9th March 2009, a fire razed 500 shacks to the ground, and left 1,500 homeless. 

(Unless otherwise captioned, all photos are from iKhayalami and cover the March 9-11 rebuilding days.)

What evolved was a partnership between the community and iKhayalami, where an entire section of Joe Slovo was planned, cleared and rebuilt using materials and expertise supplied by the NGO, and the labour and community access supplied by the leadership – all done at just 10% of the cost of more formal housing developments.

The story that follows (a large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn) is remarkable for what happened but even more for what it demonstrates about why slums are both resilient and change-resistant, how they become political and economic stalemates, and what becomes possible when tragedy cracks options open.  It also flashes insights into the role of Mission entrepreneurial entities (MEEs) and the responsive power of networks.

Slums are dense – perhaps this too is part of their definition.  Every inch of land is used, every cubic of shelter space occupied.  People constantly rub and jostle people.  Bold strokes of movement – like, say, comprehensive redevelopment of the neighborhood – are impossible without clearing the space – the physical, political, social, and economic space. 

I heard the tale from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane.

Rose Molokoane, at Rockefeller’s Bellagio Conference Center

The actors, in addition to the residents themselves, are FED-UP; iKhalayami, a grass-roots development MEE; the Community Organisation Resource Center (CORC), a technical-assistance network; and the City of Cape Town.

What’s in a name?  In the case of Joe Slovo, much.

The story begins fifteen years ago:

Joe Slovo is an informal settlement in the Langa township of Cape Town, South Africa.  With over 20,000 residents, it is one of the largest informal settlements in South Africa.  They have been in legal conflict for the past 15 years with government around their right to live in Langa.

Irresolution arises when legal authority collides with physical reality, because both are immovable objects.  The law may be an ass, for it is as stubborn; and people who have nowhere to go are just as stubborn in refusing to leave.

Joe Slovo was about to embark on an extended legal battle with National Government, around the actual and threatened relocation of residents to transit camps in the Delft area to make way for the N2 Gateway Pilot Housing Project.

Irony abounds in slums.  Here is government trying to upgrade a neighborhood, but the residents, deeply suspicious, refuse to be relocated.  They fear that once they have vacated their land, they will lose their leverage and hence their housing and their expectation of government service.

Adding to the irony is the settlement’s name.  Joe Slovo, with his wife Ruth First, was a key early all of the African National Congress (ANC), today South Africa’s ruling party.

For decades he and the ANC’s leadership – Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu – carried on an ongoing struggle to end apartheid.  They adopted a Communist line –

Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela, and Joe Slovo

– went to jail during the 1956 Treason Trial (charges later dropped –

Nelson Mandela on his acquittal

– went into exile –

– and upon his return in 1990 became founders of a new, fully democratized South African government –

– of which, in the final irony, Joe Slovo was the first housing minister.

Roughly three weeks into his tenure as housing minister, Slovo liked to recount, he had picked up the paper one morning to read New government announcement and reflexively muttered “what are those bastards up to now?”  Then he stopped, as he tells it, and said, “Hey – we are those bastards now.”

I am that bastard now

Thus the heirs of Joe Slovo were proposing to relocate the residents of Joe Slovo so that they could build a new Joe Slovo – and for fifteen years, stalemate had ensued, stalemate in the face of occasional tragedy:

January 2005

iKhayalami was first exposed to Joe Slovo after a large fire razed 3,000 shelters and left 12,000 homeless.

This was an opportunity missed, for action requires pre-tragedy organization.

While iKhayalami were not directly involved with Joe Slovo at this time, they began to look at ways to create a link with the community.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Organization takes time, and requires an investment of trust.  That can start with savings:

October 2007 – A Fed-UP savings scheme initiated

A small savings ‘Federation’ (Fed-UP) was created in Joe Slovo, directly linked with the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) and indirectly linked to iKhayalami.  Its aim was to support residents save money for future improvements to their own housing situation.  However, due to general lack of understanding around Fed-UP’s operations, coupled with suspicions by leadership, opposition blocked Fed-UP’s activities by discouraging membership and meetings within the community.

Slums have many enemies within – alternative power structures, ignorance, suspicion.  These are seldom defeated by direct assault; instead they are taken by slow, patient siege – and by people who take right action when opportunity presents itself.

Joe Slovo anti-eviction protests

In a slum, opportunity often comes disguised as fire.

Limited activities of Fed-UP continued until February 2008 when a smaller fire claimed 150 shelters.  iKhayalami, aware of the importance locally and nationally that Joe Slovo represented, made contact again with the intention of helping their limited number of Federation members who had lost homes and were now destitute.

Membership has its privileges – isn’t that the line?

A vital dialogue began between the Joe Slovo leadership, the Federation members and iKhayalami. 

Politic phrasing.

While the leadership were open to the offer of emergency assistance, they strongly opposed the idea of distributing shelters only to Federation members, a move they saw simply as dividing the community yet further. 

Joe Slovo, March 2009

Any alternate-power leadership loses its legitimacy if it does not deliver better benefits to its members than those obtained by non-members.  iKhayalami’s offer of help thus represented a direct threat to the incumbent power structures (which the report declines to name); worse for the incumbents was the offers’ unassailable legitimacy.  Who wouldn’t want a free shelter, and who wouldn’t understand that only thoser who had been members should get one?

Existing Federation members however, felt it unfair that after being penalized for taking part in the saving schemes, they now had to share the “benefits” with the rest of the community.

And quite rightly so! 

In this shift of attitudes not the shifting power allegiances; the Federation members now saw iKhayalami as a more promising ‘political party’ than the incumbent.  The result was a pragmatic fudge:

Very pragmatic

As material was only initially available for 10 shelters, and far more families were homeless, iKhayalami suggested that both the Joe Slovo leadership and the Federation members draw up lists of those most in need, which they did.

More power shift – now the Federation is acknowledged by the Joe Slovo leadership as a sovereign power with which to be treated.

To end the deadlock, these lists were compared by iKhayalami and 15 recipients selected between the two that tried to balance whom each group saw as most needy.  iKhayalami agreed to finance a further five shelters and consensus was reached.

Because affordable housing always costs money, stakeholders can often be brought to political consensus by a little more mother’s milk of politics – and some creative rationalization:

Extending support to non-Federation members was possible because while iKhayalami provides housing for Federation members, this relationship is not exclusive and the organization’s main aim is the upliftment in living conditions of the most desperate in poor communities.  Thus they had no objection to supplying housing units to non-Federation members in this moment of crisis.

Joe Slovo, March 2009, with Table Mountain behind

That last phrase is key – during crisis, human beings like other primates will suspend their territoriality in service to species protection.   Yet this was only a small crisis, and the solution was correspondingly small:

Communities are expected to participate in building their own shelters under the guidance of iKhayalami staff.  However, in this case, as only 15 shelters were constructed, and the most desperate were the ill and elderly, iKhayalami ended up building most of the shelters themselves.

As a long-time houser, I smiled at this rueful admission.  Whenever housing resources are scarce, there arises a tension as to distribution: serve the most people (shallow subsidy) or neediest people (deep subsidy)?  And if you subsidize the neediest, you reward dependency – which you can justify only if they are dependent through no fault of their own.

Small scale also prevented any slum improvement:

iKhayalami had also planned to block these shelters together but it was quickly realized that this would be impossible as any shacks had already reclaimed most of the burnt out area and the leadership were still not entirely understanding – or trusting – of the concepts proposed.  As a result, the shelters were built where they could be fitted in amongst the rest of the community. 

They still stand today.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

With a toehold, the new group expanded the reach of its coalition government:

The real success of this period was that a relationship had developed between the leadership and iKhayalami and, as people now understood the Federation’s saving scheme, membership in Joe Slovo soared.

Building on this, iKhayalami, with the Joe Slovo leadership, identified a need for a hall as community meetings were at that time being held in the open.  Money had been raised previously by iKhayalami for a community creche to be built somewhere in Cape Town and it was decided to channel these funds into a 54m2 iKhayalami structure, constructed in December 2008.

The newcomers kept bringing gifts, so the incumbent power structure kept tolerating their presence.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

The newcomers kept selling the vision:

Throughout this period, discussions had continued between iKhayalami and the leadership around the possible ‘blocking out’ of Joe Slovo.

The vision aligned with the goals of the formal power structure:

On 5th March 2009, a public forum was held in Gugulethu, Cape Town, organized by the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC), to which iKhayalami is linked, and the University of Cape Town’s African Security & Justice Program (ASJP).

The focus of the forum was on informal settlement upgrading, an area Cape Town’s mayor, Helen Zille [Now premier of Western Cape – Ed.] has voiced a commitment towards expanding.  The work of iKhayalami, their shelters and the concept of blocking was introduced. 

Thirty members of the Joe Slovo leadership attended and participated in the event.

Then came the fire.

Joe Slovo, March 2009

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]

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