Within the context of human security, there is a case to be made for the centrality of housing because of the greatest resistance of its acceptance as a contemporary threat — in both the security and development discourses.
A lack of adequate housing not only compromises development, but eventually also constitutes a security threat from myriad social ills that arise from homelessness. In the logic of this argument, homelessness or inadequate housing is therefore retrogressive to the prospects for sustainable livelihoods.
A lack of access to adequate housing exposes one to the structural violence of poverty, its severity and associated complexities of despair and deprivation — relative or absolute — which constitute a significant threat to human security.
These effects are real, whether in the Kibera slums of Kenya, the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, the favelas of São Paulo or the informal settlements of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. Consistent with development imperatives, the value and comfort that a house provides towards achieving a measure of security (including security of tenure against forced evictions) may not have been appreciated for its worth.
Without access to adequate shelter, the poor live in miserable conditions that compromise their general health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Conversely, the provision of adequate housing protects people from myriad vulnerabilities. First, adequate housing protects people against floods and associated stagnant water, in which breeds mosquitoes and other insects, the key factors in spreading infectious diseases. Overall, good health is instrumental to human security because it enables the full range of human functioning, which could collectively be referred to as human capital.
Second, provision of adequate housing mitigates against fires in informal settlements that claim lives in developing countries each year. This is partly because shacks are often constructed of extremely flammable recycled materials. Further, because of the unpredictable nature of arrangements in informal settlements, dwellings may be torched deliberately if certain commissions are not paid to powerful patrons within such settlements.
Third is a collective of factors associated with an extremely unsanitary environment, which present sudden and hurtful disruptions in people’s patterns of daily lives. The realities of living in informal settlements or slums mean ineligibility to access basic public services such as sanitation and electricity. In addition, the reality of life in informal settlements is accompanied by the psychological trauma arising from a lack of perceived improvement of one’s situation — often leading to societal breakdown.
Generally, informal settlements are located in prohibitive spaces for human habitation and are therefore characterised by abject poverty. Often, the poor and the destitute who live in impoverished informal settlements have neither opportunities to influence and affect decision-making processes, nor access to important centres of power within the corporate economy. The combined outcome has been a considerable social differentiation, which makes it difficult for the poor to act collectively and to organise themselves and determine spatial human-settlement patterns.
The magnitude of this spatial dysfunctionality is clear at social, economical and ecological levels, which remain deep and enduring. This is because settlements are often located on barren grounds; on pavements; along rivers and canals; in areas prone to floods and other hydro-meteorological hazards; on extremely insalubrious sites with health hazards such as sewerage outlets; near or on dump sites; and in areas with little access such as alleys and corridors of buildings — even on rooftops.
A house satisfies the need for subsistence by offering shelter. In this regard, it is considered to provide sufficient living area for household members if not more than two people share the same room. It is central to household functionality and productivity, social harmony and the development of a healthy and sustainable economy. Studies have shown that a lack of adequate housing reduces productive opportunities and increases physical and psychological well-being. Households are the basic organising units of socio-cultural institutions of civil society. It is through households that individuals relate to society — and through which non-market and market relations are articulated.
Households perform these essential functions by continuously solving the problem of allocating the time of their individual members to different tasks, spheres of life and domains of social practice. In this context, time is perceived as the basic resource of households in relation to material and social production. There is a marked difference in the relative efficiency of households in terms of productivity, depending on whether they are in informal settlements or slums or in desirable adequate housing.
While women provide an anchor to family stability, they are increasingly marginalised as the feminisation of asset poverty manifests itself through access to housing, especially in urban areas. Families living in informal settlements or slums — where economic forces relegate the poor — tend to concentrate on household work and informal activities outside the market economy.
Today, the international model that excites the imagination is one measured in terms of society’s ranking in human development indicators. However, the increasing trend of mortgage closures threatens to upset the relative comfort of livelihoods, even for the middle and upper classes.
The provision and access to adequate housing is a catalyst for development and remains one of the primary requirements towards sustainable livelihoods. Adequate shelter forms the foundation of basic needs in addition to food, health, education and paid work — the primary concerns of the security of an average person in the developing world. Thus, the existence of slums should be seen as a manifestation of hardships and limitations to livelihoods when a house is not a home.
Dr Clarence Tshitereke is employed by the Department of Housing