Revisiting the Self-Help Housing debate: Perception of Self-Help Housing by the beneficiaries of South African low-cost housing

4.4. Findings of interviews

4.4.1 Categories of people interviewed

Overall, ten people classified in three categories were interviewed. The first category is related to the inhabitants of informal settlements. The aim of selecting this category is to know why they do not apply for subsidy granted through PHP^39(*) or why they do not take steps to improve their housing situations themselves in for example saving for the purpose of upgrading. The second category is the residents of RDP houses. The objective of choosing this category is to know their viewpoints regarding SHH and also why they preferred RDP houses instead of PHP. The last category is legal authorities of Tembisa, in charge of Housing, which are represented by two councillors^40(*). The age of people interviewed varies between 19 years and 48 years, and they have been staying in Tembisa from 4 to 11 years.

4.4.2. Description of People interviewed

Among people interviewed, four people selected are residents of informal settlements, 4 others are inhabitants of RDP^41(*) houses and two are councilors of Tembisa. Only one woman is working in the formal sector, as cleaner in Auckland Park. She is a beneficiary of RDP house and her income is R 2500. Other people interviewed are surviving by means of informal sector activities such as street trading (see fig 5 and 6 in appendix) and part time jobs. One 48 years old respondent from an RDP house, said that she is surviving by means of government assistance granted to her children.

In addition, all people interviewed are migrants and have come to Tembisa for the purpose of finding a permanent job. To the question of: how long have you been staying in Tembisa and where were you staying before you reached Tembisa; the most recent respondent has been there for 4 years and the respondent who has lived there longest has been there for 11 years. They are from Transkei, Pretoria, Eastern Cape and East London.

4.4.3 Reasons of the non-widespread use of SHH in Tembisa

4.4.3.a Land issue

Difficult access to land as one of the causes which does not stimulate the implementation of a widespread use of SHH appeared in the response provided by one informal settlement resident. He noted that they would like to do something in order to improve their poor housing conditions but they cannot, given the risk of being evicted. The only thing that they can do for improving their housing conditions is to build more shacks^42(*). For one of the councillors interviewed, currently it is difficult to implement PHP in Tembisa given the lack of public land. He added that, given land issue, the government has only opted for RDP houses as housing mode of delivery. This raises the issue of having access to land which is one of the prerequisites for implementing PHP. In fact, as it clearly appears in Urban Development Framework of 1997,

«Effective Self-Help programmes and incremental housing initiatives require well located serviced land, strengthening urban management, promoting education and training, improving basic services, increasing the availability of finance to the poor, increasing supply of building materials and flexible building standards.»

The easy access to land is among the criteria enumerated by Urban Development Framework for a successful implementation of SHH. However, in developing countries, including South Africa, Doebele (1987) observed that the record of governments in the effective management of land has been a discouraging one. In South Africa, a significant part of available land is privately owned and the government has to negotiate with them. As Huchzermeyer (2002a) observes, this issue is difficult to deal with. In fact, the South African constitution which is based on liberal and neo-liberal principles protects private properties. This means that the democratic way for the government to find land from the private sector is to negotiate with owners. Acting otherwise, for example expropriating, would result in being anti-constitutional.

* ³⁹ RDP house is not the only subsidy that exists in South Africa. In the internet site of the Department of Housing ( www.housing.gov.za), it is mentioned that people of which income varies between O and R 3500 may also be granted subsidy for PHP.

* ⁴⁰ There are eleven councillors, one for each ward, but I could not talk to all of them; so I chose those who are in charge of the wards where households interviewed live.

* ⁴¹ The ward selected for interviews is called extension eleven. The choice of this ward is the ease of access as it is near to the main road.

* ⁴² It is worth noticing that the squatters interviewed in extension eleven (see fig 7 in appendix) did not only invade land for the purpose of building shacks. They pointed out that it was also the way to fight crime as the space invaded was being used by criminals for killing people.