analysis
Richard Tomlinson
When it comes to housing, the worst off are the worst served.
Housing international best practice is based on delivery to a family, and so too is South Africa’s housing policy. In both, the conception of the family is that of a Western nuclear family. The consequences are to bar access to housing for many South Africans and, in numerous instances, to prevent the government meeting its electoral promise of providing free basic services.
International best practice was negotiated at Istanbul in 1996. Participants at the negotiations were the United Nations, the World Bank, most countries, business and NGOs. Best practice was codified in what is called the Habitat Agenda. The Habitat Agenda on the role of families is: “The design, development and management of human settlements should enhance the role of the family.”
South Africa, which subscribes to the Agenda, has a housing policy that provides a R16 000 housing subsidy to low-income nuclear families, which includes the installation of the infrastructure needed to deliver water, sanitation and so on to nuclear families, and a capital grant for bulk services that is calculated on the basis of the number of nuclear families served. The Equitable Share subsidy, also calculated on the basis of low-income nuclear families, is made available to pay for the operating costs of the services hence, free basic services.
Numerous problems result.
For example, persons living in shacks in the backyards of their families’ homes cannot gain access to a housing subsidy to improve their dwellings. These family members share water and sanitation services that were designed for a nuclear family and soon become inadequate. The capital subsidy for providing services to nuclear families cannot be used for upgrading the services. The government’s promise of free basic services, intended to pay for, for example, 6000 litres of water a nuclear family a month, fails to serve the needs of the extended family sharing the stand.
Another example is that HIV/Aids-infected adults and children who are separated from their families are not eligible for a housing subsidy. They are also not eligible for a housing subsidy in cases where they are individuals; individuals are not eligible for a housing subsidy. Because they do not have a housing subsidy they fall outside the net when it comes to capital grants for installing services and the Equitable Share grant for paying for the services. The worst off are worst served.
But the Department of Housing specifies its mission as being: “To establish and facilitate a sustainable process that provides equitable access to adequate housing for everyone.” What does this mean for the worst off?
Another key feature of the Habitat Agenda is that the role of government is to adopt an “enabling approach” that “supports people’s efforts to develop their own housing and communities”. In other words, the role of the government is to enable markets, formal and informal, to work. In South Africa housing policy is premised on an initial subsidy and subsequent consolidation by the nuclear family. In other words, the housing policy is based on markets working.
For many, however, the market isn’t working. Unemployment has increased massively. Earning very little and needing to pay for food, clothing and education, the issue is more likely to be one of minimising investment in housing. This will be especially true of households affected by HIV/Aids that are trying to sustain the increase in health expenditure.
Lacking access to subsidies for housing and services and lacking the ability to make the market work, for many the housing policy and the framework for grants and subsidies are creating circumstances of desperation. Which is precisely what the government policy is intended to avoid.
International best practice poorly serves South Africa’s poor. The need is to revise South Africa’s housing and infrastructure policies and the framework for capital grants and operating subsidies. This exercise can begin by abandoning the notion of a Western nuclear family and start to accommodate African realities.
Richard Tomlinson is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand