Why we need social housing

Pardon Gotora Features Correspondent
During the colonial era, it was mainly the prerogative of the government (both central and local) to provide housing to the people.
The black majority were not allowed to own immovable properties by the settler regime as a result of the Land Tenure Act of 1969. They could only be allowed to rent houses in the “African townships” like Mufakose, Mbare and Highfield.

These were high-density suburbs and the second-class citizens, like the Coloured and the Indians, were allocated in the medium-density suburbs like Arcadia, Braeside and Belvedere.

The low-density areas like Borrowdale were a preserve of the white minority and were on home ownership. The blacks found there were mainly gardeners and maids. There were some restrictive pass laws that prohibited free movement of the black people in the urban areas who were regarded as “migrant workers”.

The supposition was that upon retirement the “migrant workers” would retreat to the rural areas. Social or rental housing was provided by the colonial government as a stop-gap measure to cater for the working class found in the urban areas. Therefore, a “migrant” was not entitled to own a house during the colonial era.

At independence in 1980, the Government adopted a housing policy of home ownership. This was a freehold facility where the sitting tenants who inhabited Government and council-rented houses were given the right of first refusal. The standing ordinance was that 90 percent of all the rental houses were to be converted and disposed of to the sitting tenants. These tenants were, hitherto, on leasehold and they were paying monthly rentals to the respective authorities. It was obligatory to renew the leases. Only 10 percent of the existing housing stock remained as social housing and even presently they are available for rental from both the central Government and council, with the former catering solely for the serving civil servants.

After the diktat, the houses were valued and the sitting tenants were given a Lease with Option to Purchase for a maximum period of 25 years. This implied that the amount of the monthly rentals would be contributing towards the purchase of the houses. Upon paying up the arrears, the property would be wholly owned by the sitting tenant. Title Deeds would be processed in the name of the new owner as security of tenure, after which one could do as he/she wished with the property, for instance, pledging it as collateral security when borrowing from banks and building societies or extending the property as the bulk of them were two bedroomed houses.

However, personally I feel that we forgot that there are certain strata of the society that deserves social protection from the Government through the provision of social housing. We cannot just wish them away.

Perhaps we were frenzied by the fact that we had just attained our hard-earned independence, and considering that the encumbrance of the colonial era had just vanished into thin air, we made an emotional decision to convert almost all the houses for home ownership. We could have scrutinised the concept, analyse its pros and cons and compare to best practices from other countries before reaching to a final decision.

Though the concept of converting to home ownership proved to be affordable at the time, there are some people who even up to date, have failed to pay up for the houses, 33 years after independence, not by design but by default. Some have since had their properties repossessed by council. We have heard reports of some unscrupulous councillors, in the past Government of National Unity, who manipulated the system to disinherit such people of their properties.

In the late 1980s to 2000s, the emphasis of all the Government housing projects and programmes were on the policy of home ownership at the expense of social housing. Until proved otherwise, a quick scan of all the projects will tell me a sad story that all the houses, flats, and stands were for sale. None were reserved for social housing. Although some of the so-called low-cost-stands were or are being sold at an intrinsic value, that is, 20 percent of the market value, still there is a class of people who just cannot afford that.

But they still deserve decent housing and it is the obligation of the Government to provide the same. Honestly, we cannot expect the private sector to provide social housing.

A fresh graduate straight from the university who has just been employed cannot be expected to have leveraged enough resources to buy a piece of land or own a house. We have a lot of child-headed families or orphans due to the HIV and AIDS pandemic whom we cannot expect to be able to buy a stand or a flat.

We have a lot of unemployed and physically challenged people whom we cannot expect to raise money to pay deposits for their own stands or houses. We have the elderly and the pensioners who still deserve decent housing but they cannot afford to buy due to their circumstances. Then we have the unemployed youths and women, some of whom are widows, who just cannot afford to own houses or flats. Who takes care of all these people?

With the obtaining liquidity crunch the majority of the working class can still not afford build a house and worse still to buy stands and houses. This cuts across the public and private sector. Consequently, they have fallen prey to some dodgy land barons who purport to be their messier in the provision of affordable housing. Some have been exposed to some materialistic and hard-nosed landlords who equally milk the same susceptible people who need the Government’s protection.

The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation talks of the need to improve the living standards of the citizenry for an empowered society. It further reiterates that “interventions that seek to address the plight of the poor also need to be taken on board . . .”.

The Government should espouse a deliberate ploy to increase the social housing stock, which has since deteriorated, to cater for the vulnerable group. The argument is that, it could be more ideal if the Government could concentrate much of its efforts to the provision of social housing and leave home-ownership to the private sector and co-operatives. The point is social housing becomes the entry point for anyone in need of decent accommodation.

Those who could have been fortunate enough to be able to buy their own houses or stands could then be expected to vacate the rented houses and create space for those in needy.

Therefore, social housing should be a sanctuary of those in need and strictly for those who do not own any other property in the same local authority and there should be proper procedures and criteria to use to select the potential beneficiaries in a transparent and accountable manner.

The other alternative could be to pass a decree that on all the Government housing projects, for argument’s sake, 20 percent of the stands houses should be reserved for social housing.

The concept is working well for the civil servants, where the Government introduced a quota system for them on all housing projects implemented. In this arrangement, it is mandatory that for every housing project undertaken, 20 percent of the stands should be reserved for Government use.

For starters, we can set the quota not only for civil servants but also strictly for social housing so that we gradually rebuild our social housing stock to some acceptable levels. The rentals collected there from should be ploughed back to increasing the housing stock.

In all fairness, it is impractical for everyone to be a landowner. Which means we might need close to 13 million housing units if everyone is to become a homeowner at some point in time. Land is a finite resource which must be preserved at all costs.

We need to share the same land with agriculture, which is our economic mainstay, mining, wildlife among other uses. Lest we view all the land as housing land, there is a whole host of other critical activities competing for the same land.

This brings me to the idea of promoting densification through the construction of high-rise buildings – walk-up flats.

The 2012 National Housing Policy accentuates on the need for densification to reduce urban sprawl. Even Zim Asset advocates the adoption of densification through vertical expansion. It is quite a noble idea, but it has to be implemented to realise the fruits.

We have witnessed the construction of walk up flats by government, for instance, Willowvale in Harare, Dombotombo in Marondera, Khumalo in Bulawayo, Chinotimba in Victoria Falls and Third Street in Gweru to mention but a few. Such initiatives are highly commendable but there should be a quarter for social housing.

Countries such as Singapore have the same modus operandi and it is very effective. There are a lot of high-rise buildings due to shortage of land. Those who have been to China, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia can bear testimony of the beauty brought about by building upwards.

• Pardon Gotora works as a Housing Officer in the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing. He writes in his personal capacity and opinion and his views must not be viewed as the views of the ministry. For feedback please feel free to email on [email protected].