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7400 Houses Project
Launch Date:
MoU signed by Minister Sisulu, Federation of the Urban Poor and Slum Dwellers International in May 2006. Subsidy roll out to start in April 2007. Construction with Federation savings and uTshani pre-finance started in November 2006.
Implementation Agencies:
Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP); uTshani Fund; Provincial Departments of Housing
CORC Affiliates involved in Project:
Coordinators, PEP, CMN.
Project costs:
Development capital: R240 million. Capacity Building and Training: R25 million
Funding to Date: FEDUP savings: R100,000.uTshani Bridge Finance R900,000.
SDI pre-finance: R500,000
Contact:
Rose Molokoane (FEDUP) +2782 9003187;
Ted Baumann (uTshani)+ 27 (0) 21 4474740
Context
In May 2006, six provinces committed one thousand subsidies each to the Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP) - the Shack Dwellers International affiliate in South Africa. This number has since expanded to 7,400 subsidies in total, with a further 2,000 subsidies expected from Mpumalanga and Limpopo who have made verbal commitment but have yet to formalise them.
The National Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu with support from her advisers and her Department, facilitated this agreement. It was a demonstration of a serious commitment by the South African Government to a local (South African) and international partnership with Shack Dwellers International. It also triggered a further commitment of 12,000 stands to the Malawi Federation by the Malawi Minister of Housing.
The commitment in South Africa deepened and institutionalised a partnership that took two years of sustained engagement to generate. It is the culmination of hard work, careful strategising and bold planning by a group of grassroots activists and development professionals whom many in the housing sector, especially professionals and grassroots careerists, had written off as a spent force barely 12 months earlier.
Present Situation
The Minister, FEDUP and SDI signed an MoU in Cape Town in May 2006. In terms of this MoU all three parties committed themselves to working together to find innovative solutions to the housing crisis facing the country and to explore ways to replicate these solutions in other parts of the world. The Minister pledged financial support for this initiative, and encouraged her provincial MECs to each pledge 1,000 subsidies to the partnership.
FEDUP, uTshani and SDI, with assistance from CORC, then began to negotiate with the provincial Housing Departments to secure the pledges.
By the end of November the following Provinces had joined a National Working Group and committed themselves to working with the National Ministry, SDI and FEDUP to implement the agreements in the MoU. Time constraints prevented similar agreements to be secured from two other provinces who have indicated verbally that they will participate in the process: Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
FEDUP has decided to pre-empt the process by using members savings to gear up funds from SDI, uTshani and Government to begin constructing houses. By the end of November 2006 they had begun construction of 320 houses.
Situation at the End of the Project
A minimum of 7,400 houses will have been constructed – at an average of about 1,000 houses per province. This will provide security of tenure, access to services and affordable and decent shelter to over 25,000 men, women and children.
Precedents will have been set, new systems institutionalised that should lead to the scaling up of the SDI model of people-driven housing throughout the country, with many communities, social movements and NGOs borrowing and adapting the systems and procedures that will evolve from the project.
Government will improve its capacity to respond to bottom-up initiatives and temper its strong interventionist approach to create a more enabling environment for incremental and sustainable people-driven housing development.
FEDUP will secure a second round of subsidies from the Provinces.
Lessons learnt in South Africa will be adapted to local contexts and replicated in other countries, especially African countries.