I N V E S T
located land for human settlements development are all factors
that contribute to the affordability challenge,’ SAARDA said in
a recent statement. Solving that problem on the supply side –
as the government has attempted to do through its RPD/BNG
subsidies – is clearly not working.
The result is hundreds of thousands of South Africans perpetually
living in informal dwellings, at worst, or in rented housing at best.
That rental market is a fertile ground for innovative solutions
– especially in townships, where property entrepreneurs
(called micro-developers) are building rental structures in their
backyards. Given the opportunity, those developments can
then scale up to multi-unit dwellings.
Some possible solutions
Soweto-based affordable housing business Hustlenomics is
stepping into this space, training women and the youth to replace
informal backyard shacks with durable structures. The idea is to
provide formal buildings for low-income households who cannot
access traditional home financing. The way it works is that once
the formal structures are completed, Hustlenomics then splits
the rental income with the landowner until the construction
costs have been recovered, after which full ownership is handed
over to the landowner. Hustlenomics won the SAB Foundation
Social Innovation Award. In a statement after receiving the
award, founder Nhlanhla Ndlovu explained: ‘We train women
in our local community by teaching them how to manufacture
sustainable bricks using sand and 10% cement. This method
both costs less and is three times faster to manufacture. We also
teach them to build sustainable houses using those bricks.’ He
said he’d use his prize winnings to buy a brick-making machine
that can produce up to 4,500 bricks a day.
Meanwhile, the Social Justice Coalition is taking a broader,
&
d e v e l O P
systemic approach to the problem in its Land Tenure and
Upgrading of Informal Settlement Programme (UISP). The
SJC noted that many of South Africa’s long-established urban
informal settlements are extremely densely populated, yet
lacking in basic services – and the problem is only exacerbated
by the legacy of apartheid spatial planning.
‘The government’s solutions to the housing crisis tend to be
large-scale housing sites which are often located far from the
communities and facilities currently in place within existing
settlements,’ the SJC says. Its UISP takes an ‘in-situ’ approach,
providing housing on the site of the existing settlement. This
way, households no longer need to be relocated away from their
existing communities and support structures. ‘In-situ upgrading
is also supposed to improve residents’ tenure security, by giving
residents the right to occupy and not be removed from the
location where they live. They are therefore given security of
tenure,’ the SJC explains.
The UISP aims to include communities in the upgrading
process, thereby reducing the disruption and ensuring that
the communities are involved in the upgrading of their areas.
Upgrading is done in four stages, going through the incremental
stages of community participation, supply of basic services, and
tenure security.
The SJC’s approach involves a grand and ambitious vision –
perhaps too ambitious. But the scale of South Africa’s housing
crisis is such that opportunities have to be found where they can.
If that means shifting focus from subsidised housing to more
affordable rentals, then that may be where the Band-Aid needs
to be applied for now.
Mark van Dijk
Where there is a problem, there is often a solution. And
where there is a solution, there is usually an opportunity. But
the affordable housing crisis – particularly at the lower end of
the spectrum – is one with no obvious solutions, and no fruity
low-hanging opportunities. There are opportunities there,
but they will require ingenuity and creativity, and a definite
business not-as-usual approach. And isn’t that the definition of
entrepreneurship?
F
Is this an opportunity?
It’s clear that a solution – any sustainable, lasting solution – is
needed to the crisis. With 13,1% of our country’s households
still living in informal dwellings, and with only 34.4% of urban
households able to buy their own home, the numbers aren’t
looking good.