Building for the homeless; International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (1987).

Building for the Homeless

A problem as old as civilization

The spectre of homelessness and squalid, unhealthy housing for the poor is as old as civilization. Writing in the second century, the Roman poet Juvenal described the plebeians living in noisome, ramshackle tenements so flimsy they were "bestirred by every wind'. In a 1684 memorandum, the Chief of Police of Paris referred to the "frightful misery that afflicts the greater part of the population of this great city', where between 40,000 and 65,000 were reduced to outright beggary. Scottish author Thomas Carlyle wrote eloquently in the next century about the rural poor in their "clay hovels and hutches' on the eve of the French Revolution. On a visit to Liverpool in the 1830s, American novelist Herman Melville was shocked to see that a homeless woman and her two children lay dying in a cellar opening under the sidewalk, not to be picked up until after their bodies had begun to rot.

For 1 billion people living at the end of the twentiety century, the passage of time has not noticeably changed things. The homeless today--the pavement dwellers, those who sleep in doorways, subways and recesses of buildings, those made homeless by natural and man-made disasters, and the hundreds of millions who do not have access to safe water and sanitation, who do not have security of tenure and personal safety, and who, because of their poverty, are confined in slums and shanty towns--live under conditions that duplicate those under which the plebeians of Juvenal lived.

Today an estimated one fifth of the world's population does not have adequate shelter. About 100 million people have no shelter whatsoever. Every 24 hours, more than 50,000 people, most of them children, die of malnutrition and disease--deaths generally linked to lack of adequate housing.

The problem is everywhere

The problem is nearly everywhere. In industrialized countries, officials are concerned over the deterioration of the inner cities. Any visitor to the great cities of the world, where vagrancy has long since ceased to be an enforceable offence, has seen the homeless who wander the streets.

In the developing world, the picture is even worse. There, up to 50 per cent--in some cities nearly 80 per cent--of the urban population lives in slums and squatter settlements. The population of these settlements is increasing at twice the rate of the cities themselves--representing a yearly growth rate of 3.5 per cent, or some 49 million people. And, within the next 15 years, the urban population of the developing countries will double.

Overnight shanty towns 

In the shanty towns, which spring up overnight, the poor live in paralysing insecurity, evicted repeatedly from homes they have often seen razed to the ground, and facing hostile officials who refuse to recognize their existence, and deny them medical care and education for their children. In slum and squatter areas, shelters are often constructed on marginal lands vulnerable to floods, fire and land- and mudslides. Slum-dwellers have no means of getting cheap building materials. Most lack the technical and organizational skills necessary to make more than marginal improvements on their shelters. They cannot use public transportation, either because it does not extend to their neighbourhood or because it costs too much. Absence of transportation in turn limits their access to health, education, welfare services and employment.

In rural areas of the developing world, housing conditions are too often marked by mass poverty, malnutrition, poor water-supply, inadequate sanitation and a lack of services. As many as one third of the rural population do not have title to the land they occupy and have little hope of acquiring it. Only 41 per cent of these people have access to safe drinking water--as against 71 per cent of the world's urban population. Only 12 per cent of them are served by adequate sanitation--as opposed to 59 per cent of the urban population. They suffer from high infant-mortality rates, low life-expectancy and high incidence of disease. Because of these factors, coupled with lack of employment opportunities, more and more of them are drawn to the cities.

The United Nations and the Homeless

The groundwork for United Nations action on behalf of the homeless and ill-sheltered was laid in 1976, at Habitat: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, held at Vancouver, Canada. At that meeting, representatives of 132 Governments formally addressed the many formidable problems existing in the condition of shelter, and, in the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, committed themselves to improve the quality of life for all peoples through the development of human settlements, and adopted 64 recommendations for national action to this end. These recommendations covered settlement policies, settlement planning, provision of shelter, infrastructure and services, land use and land tenure, the role of popular participation, and effective institutions and management.

In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly decided to establish an intergovernmental Commission on Human Settlements. It merged various existing United Nations human settlement units into a new United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. It charged the Centre with assisting its governing body, the Commission on Human Settlements, in co-ordinating human settlements activities in the United Nations; executing human settlements projects; providing the focal point for exchange of information about human settlements; and promoting collaboration with and the involvement of the scientific community working in this field.

Housing crisis worsens

In the late 1970s, housing problems worsened, particularly in the developing world. Population increases and unplanned, too-rapid urbanization deepened the housing crisis. The world-wide recession that began in the mid-1970s had an impact on government economic plans. Short on funds, many Governments that had planned housing efforts were forced to reorder their priorities and even reduce expenditures for shelter.

In an address to the General Assembly in 1980, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka termed the special international provision of adequate housing "a basic aspect in the global assault on poverty', and he urged the declaration of a year dedicated to the problems of the homeless and those living in substandard housing. In December 1982, the General Assembly, by consensus, adopted resolution 37/221 proclaiming 1987 the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless.

Two primary objectives

The Assembly set two primary objectives: the first was to improve the shelter and neighbourhoods of some of the world's poor and disadvantaged by 1987, particularly in the developing countries, according to national priorities. The second was to demonstrate ways to improve the shelter and neighbourhoods of the poor by the year 2000.

To help achieve these larger objectives, the Assembly set a series of subsidiary goals. It called for renewed political commitment by the international community to improve the shelter and neighbourhoods of the poor and disadvantaged and to provide shelter for the homeless in the developing countries. It asked for consolidation and sharing of new knowledge and experience, so as to offer tested and practical alternatives for improving and providing shelter. New methods were to be developed to assist directly the efforts of the homeless poor and disadvantaged themselves to obtain or improve shelters and neighbourhoods, and to provide a basis for new national policies and strategies to achieve these ends by the year 2000. Finally, the Assembly asked countries to exchange experience and provide support in order to meet the objectives of the Year.

The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements was put in charge of co-ordinating the efforts of United Nations bodies and other concerned organizations to promote action against homelessness for the International Year. The Centre drew up a plan of action needed to launch the Year. The Plan of Action was endorsed by the General Assembly in 1983.

A Plan of Action

To pursue the goals of resolution 37/221, the Plan of Action encouraged States to adopt innovative approaches towards ameliorating the problem of homelessness for at least some of the poor before 1987. It encouraged them to undertake various "shelter demonstration projects' (i.e. pilot projects in housing) in which new schemes for improving housing in their countries would be tested.

It divided efforts surrounding the Year into three phases:

In the first phase, the international community was urged to review and evaluate, between 1983 and 1986, existing information and experience relating to shelter, and put shelter demonstration projects into operation.

In the second phase, Governments and other participants were asked to evaluate, in 1987, during the International Year itself, the information derived from the shelter projects and to share it with the international community. The year 1987 was seen as a crucial transition period between the search for solutions and their extensive application.

From 1988 to 2000 . . .

Between 1988 and the year 2000, the third phase, new shelter policies, programmes and methods based on the information gained in the first two phases were to be implemented as integral parts of national economic and social development plans. This phase, especially, would require an effective programme of international co-operation and support.

The entire programme was to be funded by voluntary contributions, most of which would go directly into actual projects and project support services. There was no call in the Plan of Action for a major global conference or a global information effort to publicize the International Year. The Year's information campaign was to concentrate on supporting the search for solutions, on making successful results more widely known and on training and direct project support.

When the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements holds its tenth (commemorative) session at Nairobi, Kenya, from 6 to 16 April 1987, it will review and evaluate progress on implementing the Plan of Action for the International Year. It will also look at future perspectives, major human settlements trends up to the year 2000, and national action and international co-operation in the field of human settlements, in an effort to make plans for a strategy in advance of the year 2000.

Shelter demonstration projects

The shelter demonstration projects described in the Plan of Action are capable of great variation. The forms they take depend on the needs and the resources of each country. They can include: development of new low-cost building techniques, especially techniques employing indigenous materials and methods; improvement of water supplies and waste disposal; generation of new jobs in the construction industry; improvement of environmental health conditions; and upgrading of infrastructure and services for the poor. They also include creation of new approaches to shelter policy, adoption of new legislation, new financing schemes to assist the poor with their housing, and incentives to the private sector to aid housing.

Since 1983, the projects have introduced innovative approaches in many parts of the developing world. For instance--

In Brazil, in October 1983, 1,000 houses were built in a single day by thousands of men, women and children from all walks of life working side-by-side in a volunteer project to shelter the thousands of homeless who were living under bridges or on the streets of the city of Goiania in Goias State. The State government bore the cost of acquiring the necessary land, materials and expertise. Beneficiaries of the scheme contributed 10 to 15 per cent of their salaries to cover costs of construction. Television stations gave free advertising to encourage broad participation. Businesses lent lorries to move families to their new homes.

In Thailand, land-sharing techniques have been developed by which slum dwellers have agreed with their landlords to give up part of the land they occupy in exchange for the right to purchase the balance. Government agencies have guaranteed the purchase and eased procedures for reblocking and title registration. The tenants do the necessary work on infrastructure and make shelter improvements themselves.

In Zimbabwe, a shelter demonstration project has encouraged community participation in all the project's stages--on-site training, construction work, monitoring and evaluation. The project made use of financing from both the public and private sector--a housing finance mechanism geared to small loan requirements and savings capacity, with loan repayment guarantees from the government housing agency.

In Sri Lanka, a nation-wide self-help scheme called the "Million Houses' programme is in effect in most rural districts and urban centres. The programme, based on minimum interference and maximum assistance from the Government, provides for a decentralized financial mechanism to make small loans. Recipients choose the specific way they want to use the loan. The scheme encourages development of local building materials and a nation-wide interest in self-building.

In Kerala State, India, community participation and co-operation with non-governmental organizations are the bases for an extensive housing scheme. The Government provides small loans to people who already have title to land through the extensive land reform measures.

In the Republic of Korea, the real estate industry has been encouraged to provide housing to low-income groups through such incentives as making land available at development cost and construction finance on attractive terms, as well as offering tax advantages.

In Malaysia, the Government also offers incentives to the private sector, including: special approval procedures for planning and building permission, revised infrastructure standards affordable by the poor, permission to undertake large-scale mixed developments to facilitate cross-subsidy among income groups and different land uses.

Photo: 1 billion have inadequate housing . . .

Photo: . . . 100 million are homeless throughout the world

Photo: Disabled and homeless . . .

Photo: Urban planners in Sri Lanka.

Photo: Building for the Future